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A government presentation paints a bleak picture for school dropouts.
- The Department of Basic Education says the projected dropout rates are concerning and schools are encouraged to keep track of students who no longer attend.
- He is also concerned about the attendance of seventh graders since they returned to school.
- Nationwide, 10,048 teachers have contracted the coronavirus since the start of the lockdown.
KwaZulu-Natal is leading in number of projected dropouts since schools reopened, shows a presentation presented to Parliament’s Basic Education Portfolio Committee.
Deputy Minister of Basic Education Reginah Mhaule and Director General Mathanzima Mweli were before the committee on Tuesday to present the status of the schools reopening.
The presentation showed that the projected dropout in KZN, by far the largest province in the country in terms of numbers, could be around 38,541 children in 7th grade and 18,708 in 12th grade.
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Mweli said the department had been tracking student attendance because it wanted to link it to the possibility of dropout rates.
“[It’s] only one projection by provinces. It may be a worrying factor but it is very important to us. What we generally encourage the provinces to do is take the number of those who attend school and then link it with the number of those who are at home, with comorbidities who are doing e-learning and those who are at home for the homeschooling and then the variation between them all gives you an idea of the projected dropout rate. “
Limpopo has the lowest dropout projections, standing at 87 for 7th grade and 60 for 12th grade.
The Western Cape has a projected dropout rate of 5-15% for the seventh grade. This would be between 4,600 and 13,900 of its 90,000 students in that grade.
DBE School State Reopening Presentation.
Screenshot
Mweli added that the department encouraged schools to keep track of students believed to have dropped out.
He said the department had also been tracking student attendance since they returned to school, combined with those who were learning from home.
According to the presentation, the attendance rate for students in grades 7 and 12 at KZN was 81.4 and 87%, respectively. The attendance of teachers of both grades in the province is 82%.
Worrying
The Western Cape recorded a 46.4% physical attendance rate for children in grade 7 and 70.4% in enrollment.
Mweli said the attendance rate for children in the Western and Eastern Cape was worrying.
The Eastern Cape has an attendance rate of 67.8% for Grade 7 and 77.3% for Grade 12.
He added that he had received reports that the Western Cape was communicating with parents and encouraging them to bring their children to school.
“We know that the experts have warned us that if the students stay too long at home, it is likely that some of them will leave the system, early pregnancies, social ills such as drugs that affect some of these students, etc.”, He said Mweli.
He added that since the start of the lockdown, 10,048 teachers, 2,331 non-teaching personnel and 3,270 students have been infected by Covid-19 nationwide.
Four deaths have been reported among the students.
DBE School State Reopening Presentation.
Screenshot
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