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Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga
- The Basic Education Department said reports from its provincial departments indicated that schools were on track to reopen on Monday.
- Some schools were unable to reopen on January 25 due to various challenges.
- The department said the platoon would be back in place when they reopened.
The Basic Education Department says all systems are working to get schools reopening on Monday, and health and safety will be a priority as the fight against Covid-19 transmissions continues.
He said 24,026 schools reopened on January 25 to prepare for the return of the students.
At least 67 schools were unable to reopen due to various reasons, ranging from storm and flood damage to problems with access roads, the department added.
Excluding Limpopo and the Western Cape, 291,257 teachers returned to work on February 1 and 295,608 had returned between February 8-12.
“We will continue to maintain the delicate balance between health and safety in schools on the one hand, while on the other we address the curricular gaps, identified during the 2020 academic year.
“Senior industry executives, under the leadership of the CEO, have been working very hard to strengthen existing plans for 2021,” Education Minister Angie Motshekga said during a preparedness briefing in Pretoria on Sunday afternoon.
According to the department, the provision of personal protective equipment (PPE) was not a problem in all provinces.
READ | School reopening: a rundown of some of the headaches as February 15 looms
He said students would return at the same time and schools indicated that they would use differentiated schedules.
Motshekga added posted instructions emphasizing that schools must adhere to health and safety protocols to save lives, saying the directives have been distributed to schools for implementation.
The department’s director general, Mathanzima Mweli, said provincial departments had suitable masks for students, teachers and support staff.
He added that the provinces had measures in place to ensure that schools did not run out of Covid-19 essentials.
In the Eastern Cape, the department had authorized schools to purchase PPE with savings from recent years’ budgets.
Gauteng, on the other hand, had announced a tender for PPE, which would ensure there would be bulk purchases that would last for a while.
At least 17,473 teachers and 4,937 students, excluding those from the Eastern Cape, have tested positive since March 2020, the department said.
Mweli added 1,169 teachers and 19 students have died.
Motshekga said the department is continuously meeting with stakeholders and will also use the results of a survey conducted by teachers’ unions.
The National Organization of Professional Teachers of South Africa, as well as four others, including the Democratic Union of Teachers of South Africa, conducted a survey that focused, among others, on health and safety, admissions and dropouts, and the provision of PPE in the schools.
The survey would be used to work on the identified gaps, he added.
“We remain committed to meeting and consulting with stakeholders to guide and lead the industry as we move through these difficult times.”
Motshekga said 290,000 young people were contractually employed as education assistants and general school assistants as part of the Basic Education Employment Initiative.
The assistants were employed as part of the industry response to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s fiscal stimulus package, which was announced in April 2020.
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