Johannesburg – The October school holiday break has still not been clarified by the Department of Basic Education.
Spokesperson for the department Elijah Mhlanga said Minister Angie Motshekga would address the public today (Sunday: August 29) as she had a meeting with the Council of Education Minsiters (CEM) on Friday.
Executive director of The National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa) Basil Manuel said this showed a level of cruelty toward teachers.
Dr Stephen Taylor, director of research for the department, said research by the department shows between 50% and 75% of a normal year of teaching was lost this year.
Manuel said it was ridiculous that the department’s view was that tons of work can be caught up within four days.
The school break to be scrapped would run from October 4 to 8.
On Tuesday during a parliamentary briefing, Motshekga said they were not scrapping holidays.
“The DG reported we have lost lots of time. In January we lost lots of days and he said we will alter the curriculum so we can have the full number of days we are supposed to be teaching. With the second wave, the DG explained, we also lost a week because we were forced to close early. What we have committed ourselves to as a department was that we are going to look for days in the remaining days to compensate for those lost. It’s not scrapping. It’s our efforts to recover the days lost because of the problems that came with Covid-19,” said Motshekga.
But this week Mhlanga said there was no final decision. He also denied that some matriculants, sitting for their preliminary exams, were not up to date with the syllabus – saying that they were in fact up to date.
He also said it wasn’t clear if any matrics had dropped out of the school system due to the pandemic.
He said these statistics would only be available in September.
Motshekga also made a proposition that primary school learners sit at 0.5m apart instead of the recommended 1.5m, to accommodate more learners at full capacity so that children could attend every day. But due to an overwhelming outcry, Mhlanga said many schools have returned to the rotational setup.
Manuel said unions were still in the dark about the holidays, but that they all agreed that it should not be scrapped.
“We will have a situation where more teachers then put in sick leave, because they are exhausted. They have put in extra time to teach and deserve the break,” he said.
He also mentioned that many sporting codes make their selection during the October break and that those educators were now at their wits end because they don’t know what will happen.
“Numbers of infections have also gone up, especially in coastal areas. Scientifically it makes sense to grant the holiday to stop the spread of the virus. The department is out of touch with the realities on the ground,” said Manual.
South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) spokesperson Nomusi Cembi also said that these last minute changes to the calendar will add strain to the mental health of the teachers, who are already suffering. Sadtu also said that the department should make use of the least two weeks of the school calendar year, because with schools closing mid-December, nothing happens during the last two weeks in between.
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