Covid-19

Coronavirus & Education

It’s final: Schools will reopen on 1 June for grades 7 and 12

It’s final: Schools will reopen on 1 June for grades 7 and 12
Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga. (Photo: GCIS)

After weeks of leaving the public on tenterhooks about the reopening of schools, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga announced 1 June as the definite date for grades 7 and 12 to return to school.

“The National Coronavirus Command Council and Cabinet have approved the reopening of schools as of June 1, 2020. Independent and public ordinary schools will open, including in metropolitan areas. 

“We will start with grades 7 and 12 and small schools. The other grades will follow in due course,” Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said during a media briefing on Tuesday 19 May. 

Motshekga said small schools are ones with not more than 125 pupils. 

Motshekga dismissed as “misinformation” reports from Sunday newspapers and other news outlets that claimed schools in metropolitan areas with a large proportion of coronavirus infections will not reopen. 

In the last couple of weeks, the department has had to reconcile opposing views from unions, parents, civil rights organisations, and the public about the reopening of schools. 

The availability and on-time delivery of personal protective gear (PPE), and the provision of water, and sanitation facilities have been at the centre of discussions about the readiness of schools to reopen their doors to learners, educators, and other staff members. 

Nonetheless, the minister defended the department’s decision to reopen schools: “We are doing everything in our power to protect lives. But life must go on, and that’s why we are even reopening the economy. The best we can do is ensure that people’s lives are protected by providing health and safety guidelines”. 

She reiterated her previous statements that it is up to the provincial departments to ensure that schools are ready and comply with the standard health and safety guidelines. 

Provincial departments are tasked with the procurement of PPE, hiring additional staff to assist with the screening of learners and educators, and ensuring that schools have been sanitised and thoroughly cleaned before they reopen.

In the last week, Limpopo, Eastern Cape, and KwaZulu-Natal had to delay reopening schools after facing challenges with procuring PPE. 

Motshekga further said that provinces have reported Monday 25 May as the return date for all educators, regardless of the grade they teach. 

Unions have been vocal about the safety of educators whose health might be compromised because of age and underlying health conditions. 

The department provided somewhat of an assurance that provincial departments working alongside the department of health have profiled its workers and offered guidelines to schools on how to handle these concerns. 

Motshekga said schools are expected to work with parents to establish and obtain information on pupils with underlying health conditions. 

“We’ll have to deal with problems of children with underlying conditions case-by-case. We’ll have to find ways to assist these children,” she said. 

Motshekga reiterated that the decision to reopen schools had been made with input from the health department and its leading medical experts. 

The decision, she said, is also guided by international bodies like Unesco, Unicef, and the WHO, all of which have emphasised the social costs of keeping schools closed for a prolonged period. 

“The Nutrition Programme will be reopened for all learners when grades 12 and 7 are reintroduced to schools on 1 June 2020. All food handlers will be supplied with the required personal protective equipment including gloves, aprons, and cloth masks. The school nutrition budget will be utilised according to the revised school calendar and where feasible, school meals will also be extended to catch-up programmes for the Grade 12s,” said the minister

Parents who choose to keep their children at home will be allowed to, provided that they either register to homeschool them or have them repeat the grade next year. 

“We will announce return dates for other grades as we continue to rephase-in,” she said. DM

Gallery

"Information pertaining to Covid-19, vaccines, how to control the spread of the virus and potential treatments is ever-changing. Under the South African Disaster Management Act Regulation 11(5)(c) it is prohibited to publish information through any medium with the intention to deceive people on government measures to address COVID-19. We are therefore disabling the comment section on this article in order to protect both the commenting member and ourselves from potential liability. Should you have additional information that you think we should know, please email [email protected]"

Please peer review 3 community comments before your comment can be posted

X

This article is free to read.

Sign up for free or sign in to continue reading.

Unlike our competitors, we don’t force you to pay to read the news but we do need your email address to make your experience better.


Nearly there! Create a password to finish signing up with us:

Please enter your password or get a sign in link if you’ve forgotten

Open Sesame! Thanks for signing up.

We would like our readers to start paying for Daily Maverick...

…but we are not going to force you to. Over 10 million users come to us each month for the news. We have not put it behind a paywall because the truth should not be a luxury.

Instead we ask our readers who can afford to contribute, even a small amount each month, to do so.

If you appreciate it and want to see us keep going then please consider contributing whatever you can.

Support Daily Maverick→
Payment options

Become a Maverick Insider

This could have been a paywall

On another site this would have been a paywall. Maverick Insider keeps our content free for all.

Become an Insider

Every seed of hope will one day sprout.

South African citizens throughout the country are standing up for our human rights. Stay informed, connected and inspired by our weekly FREE Maverick Citizen newsletter.