President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement on the evening of 23 July 2020 that schools would once again be closed came as a painful reminder of this government’s shockingly poor prioritisation and understanding of education. 

Many of us are fully aware of the dire impact of the pandemic on all sectors and aspects of global societies and communities. Nothing could have prepared us for what the world is currently facing. 

Yet, even under unpredictable and challenging circumstances, citizens have the right to expect leadership and sound judgment from those who have been elected into power. Ramaphosa’s latest highly unconvincing announcement is the continuation of an ongoing broken narrative in this sector. 

Despite a litany of policies which were meant to address desperately needed educational reform, our education system continues to be defined not only by wholly inadequate and, at times, disgraceful educational facilities and resources, but also a questionable curriculum, unqualified and underqualified teachers, high learner attrition, overcrowded classrooms, high teacher absenteeism, poor school leadership, poor academic performance, ineffectual school governance, poor parental involvement, and dismal support and non-accountability by educational authorities. 

This is our educational context amidst a global pandemic – maybe not for all schools, but certainly for most. 

The president’s decision to close our schools has very little to do with a pandemic. It has to do with the substandard conditions, and political paralysis, which existed prior to the outbreak.  

As dismal as the conditions at our schools are, they are still in a better state than the living conditions of most of the country’s children. Hence, while it is indeed the case that an increasing number of teachers and learners are contracting the virus (at school and elsewhere), it is not as if they will have less chance of doing so if not at school. 

Moreover, the closure of schools (albeit temporarily) does not imply only the suspension of teaching and learning. Schools, regardless of their inadequate conditions, provide much more than teaching and learning. For the majority of learners, schools provide a literal breadline, security, structure, role-modelling, and a haven in otherwise violent and destructive communities.  

One of the major imperatives for rolling out extramural and after-school activities in impoverished communities is not only to develop learners holistically, but to offer them alternatives to the lives and choices they encounter on a daily basis. The longer learners can be kept in schools, the safer they are. 

When these schools are closed, learners are not only being kept from schooling, they are placed at greater risk of hunger, neglect, and abuse. In the absence of routine and structure, they are more prone to making uninformed and bad choices. In a country where violence is pervasively destructive, we can ill afford to neglect the lives of young people any more than we have already done. 

What the president seemingly fails to understand or take into account is that by the time he eventually decides to reopen schools, the biggest issue is not going to be how to salvage an academic year, but how to get learners to return to school in the first place. 

Statistics prior to the pandemic and lockdown suggest that up to 40% of learners do not complete their 12 years of compulsory schooling. The economic hardships brought about by the haemorrhaging of jobs means that school-going children would be under pressure to find sources of income (whether legal or not). This is certainly not a new responsibility, given the number of child-headed homes in South Africa, which is among the highest in the world. 

Others would have lost all motivation to remain focused on any sort of learning, because their home conditions are not only inconducive to providing spaces and resources for learning, but their surroundings of poverty mean that they do not see the benefits of an education, or what it means to enjoy the rights of a democratic society. 

Again, not a new phenomenon, but the absence of schooling means a deprivation of the hope and aspiration that education can hold. And by the time schools reopen, still more would have become victims to South Africa’s spiralling violence. 

Herein lies the real tragedy of the president’s decision to close schools – the failure to provide education far exceeds an educational brief; it is a failure to provide the conditions for democratic citizenship. DM