Johannesburg – The debate around when schools should reopen for the 2021 academic year is a particularly emotive issue.
Adding to the emotion is the differentiating in class topic, which the debate continuously highlights.
While middle- and upper-class parents feel more comfortable sending their children back to school, parents of children who attend township schools are worried how Covid-19 protocols will be better enforced to ensure their children’s safety.
This divide also extends to educators and where they teach.
Action Society’s view that schools should be granted the decision to open based on their own merit seems fair.
Some schools are able to initiate and sustain safety protocols far better than others.
Social distancing, for example, is much easier to control in bigger-sized classrooms than in already overcrowded schools.
The debate, however, exposes the structural issues in our society that particularly affect children.
It should be addressed and considered in the equation.
STARVING IMPAIRS COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
In 2020, Pretoria High Court judge Sulet Potterill ruled that the Department of Basic Education had committed an “obscenity” by not continuing the national schools nutrition programme during the hard lockdown.
As a civil rights group fighting for the rights of the most vulnerable parties in our society, this was Action Society’s argument exactly.
Potterill ordered Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga to implement concrete plans to reopen the feeding scheme within 15 days of her judgment.
Nine million qualifying pupils – perhaps even more – had to stay at home and for weeks on end went without what is often their only nutritious meal of the day, literally starving due to the economy coming to a standstill and parents suffering pay cuts and job losses.
South Africa is particularly food insecure.
This is especially heinous considering that a lack of nutritious food impairs the cognitive development of children.
HAVE VERSUS HAVE NOTS
While schools not opening for middle- class parents results in a logistical nightmare, many can still plan so that their children do not fall behind. Most of these households have the internet in their homes.
They can to a great extent ensure that their children get teachers’ input and instructions through platforms like Zoom. Some parents can even afford additional online resources.
For children of poorer parents who do not have reliable access to the internet, extra tutoring or a way to communicate with teachers is a matter of intergenerational mobility.
Their circumstances severely affect their life prospects, especially when it is taken in consideration with the inequality of the current education system.
GOVERNMENT GENERATES THE GAP
The logic that more affluent parents should not send their private school kids back to school because of “social solidarity” is perverse.
It is based on the same short-sighted view the government took during lockdown level five when it insisted online retailers could not open because it would be unfair to physical stores and retailers.
This reasoning scarred our economy.
By applying it to our educational system, it will have the same catastrophic effect.
Now that the reopening of schools has been delayed, despite the objections of the South African Paediatric Association, the obvious question is: when will it be safe?
Professor Haloon Sarojee, the executive member of the South African Paediatric Association, laments that the decision is not based on science.
This troubling assertion highlights that government’s decision was grounded on the opinion of teacher unions, not facts.
We cannot sit back and let the same thing happen to education.
Government’s concerns and policies need to be aligned with science to benefit every child’s democratic right to education.
Public school are reopening tomorrow for the start of the 2021 academic year.
Vabaza was commissioned by civil rights group Action Society.
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