Basic education minister Angie Motshekga confident schools ready for full-time attendance

Basic education minister Angie Motshekga was confident on Sunday that schools are ready to welcome pupils back on a full-time basis.

She was briefing the media before the return to daily attendance for all pupils from Monday.

She said during engagements with stakeholders, concerns were raised regarding the state of school infrastructure and the feasibility of accommodating all the pupils under the current circumstances.  

“The matter of late delivery of stationery and textbooks in the Eastern Cape, in particular, was raised sharply in the meetings with stakeholders. Overcrowding was also a common concern, identified as one needing special attention.”

Motshekga said they have assured their social partners that they are in talks with the National Treasury to resolve the matters taking into consideration that the challenges preceded the Covid-19 pandemic.  

The department is exploring all possibilities to resolve all the identified areas of priority.

Despite challenges there has been overwhelming support for the full return of pupils to daily attendance. 

“We have today (Sunday) published a Gazette, which officially ushers in the new environment as per the cabinet decision. The Council of Education Ministers (CEM) met twice this week, and agreed that full-time attendance starts tomorrow (Monday).”

Motshekga said provinces have made preparations for: 

• Communicating with parents and other stakeholders about the “big return”;
• Adjustment of the school timetables and duty-loads;
• Adjustment of the school assessment programmes;
• Safety from Covid-19 infections;
• Non-pharmaceutical preventions;
• Accelerated delivery of infrastructure / water / sanitation;
• Continued provision of pupil transportation;
• Continued provision of school nutrition;
• Intensified monitoring and evaluation oversight.

She said the return to full-time classes will assist with the recovery plan.

“The return to normal timetabling will assist the sector to intensify its implementation of the curriculum recovery plan. The learning losses incurred in the past two years are indisputably devastating.

“The first step towards addressing the crisis of lost learning, is to prevent further disruptions to school time, and prevent other learning losses, while ensuring the health and safety of our school communities. The second step is to introduce measures to catch up on the time, as well as the teaching and learning that was lost through the Covid-19 pandemic, in particular,” she said.

The basic education department said of the 7.7-million qualifying pupils, at least 1.2-million have been vaccinated with 15,000 pupils vaccinated in the past 24 hours.

“We do want everyone in the sector to vaccinate, so we are encouraging our teachers to go for a booster which is available at different health sites. We also discussed the need to make sure that we encourage our young people to vaccinate,” Motshekga said.

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