Basic education minister Angie Motshekga says about 4% of all schools nationally had closed again since grades 7 and 12 pupils returned to class on June 8.
Motshekga said during a briefing on Sunday that since last month, 2,740 of the national total of 440,000 teachers had become infected, less than 1%.
Motshekga did not provide percentages of closures and infections in each province, which might show that some provinces, including the Eastern Cape, have much higher rates of infection than most.
The temporary closure of these schools after the post-lockdown reopening was much better than a system-wide closure over the same time or even longer, Motshekga said. Such a longer shutdown would come at an unacceptable cost of lost learning and school feeding for an entire generation of children, with a consequent worsening of social and economic inequalities for years to come.
The minister said it was agreed that provinces were at different levels of readiness to receive further grades of pupils. Today, grades R, 6 and 11 will return to schools. However, if a province is unable to receive Grade R pupils, they must provide a plan for this group to return to school by no later than the end of July.
Temporary school closures due to virus better than prolonged lockdown, Motshekga says
Image: Thapelo Morebudi/The Sunday Times
Basic education minister Angie Motshekga says about 4% of all schools nationally had closed again since grades 7 and 12 pupils returned to class on June 8.
Motshekga said during a briefing on Sunday that since last month, 2,740 of the national total of 440,000 teachers had become infected, less than 1%.
Motshekga did not provide percentages of closures and infections in each province, which might show that some provinces, including the Eastern Cape, have much higher rates of infection than most.
The temporary closure of these schools after the post-lockdown reopening was much better than a system-wide closure over the same time or even longer, Motshekga said. Such a longer shutdown would come at an unacceptable cost of lost learning and school feeding for an entire generation of children, with a consequent worsening of social and economic inequalities for years to come.
The minister said it was agreed that provinces were at different levels of readiness to receive further grades of pupils. Today, grades R, 6 and 11 will return to schools. However, if a province is unable to receive Grade R pupils, they must provide a plan for this group to return to school by no later than the end of July.
Motshekga said the school nutrition programme has resumed for grades 12 and 7 pupils in all provinces.
“We have even expanded feeding to learners who are not yet back in schools. Plans are in place to provide feeding to learners not yet in school using different options, including staggered feeding at school, cooked food collected at school, food parcels collected at school, and parcels collected at collection points other than school.”
This comes after the department of education was dragged to court by Equal Education over its failure to roll out the nutrition programme in schools.
Equal Education approached the Pretoria high court asking for a declaratory order that the government had a duty to ensure that meals were provided to all pupils who qualified to benefit from the national school nutrition programme.
Covid-19 has infected 2,740 teachers since return to school: Motshekga
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