Losing a year is like losing fingers, says Angie, who still wants distancing rule reduced

Basic education minister Angie Motshekga is still determined to reduce the social distancing requirement in primary schools from 1m to half a metre so more children can attend classes daily.

This comes despite a rejection by teacher unions of her proposal early this month.

Giving an update on the basic education sector’s response to the affect of Covid-19 on schooling during a media briefing on Sunday, she said they did not ask the department of health for a further reduction from 1m to 0.5m because of high levels of infection in the third wave.

“We hoped we could get 0.5m for the foundation phase [grades R to 3] to create more space because when they play at home they play head to head. But the third wave discouraged us from even pursuing the half-metre because in some areas there’s still high levels of infections.”

She said while children may not be severely affected by Covid-19, they can be carriers.

“That’s why we felt ... let’s allow the infections to drop and reconsider if we can still re-negotiate reducing more spaces for foundation phase because our biggest, biggest concern is the foundation phase.

“Of all the things we are really hoping for [it] is to be able to reach a stage where the foundation phase learners are able to return in full to classes,” Motshekga said.

The infection rate was still too high at the moment “to even consider going to health to say: ‘Can you please reduce even further for foundation phase learners?’” she added.

While all primary school pupils were expected to return to class on a full-time basis from August 2, many schools had not been able to allow this because they could not comply with the 1m social distancing requirement in the classroom.

Government reduced the requirement from 1.5m to 1m in primary schools at the end of July.

Unions said in a letter at the time that they were not consulted about Motshekga’s proposed social distancing reduction.

Commenting on curriculum coverage, Motshekga said teachers might have taught five chapters, but measuring teaching time was different to measuring learning children had done by looking at their textbooks, work and assessments.

“But the level and depth of understanding is not adequate because teachers are trying to move fast to cover the curriculum. That has also helped us to say it doesn’t help to rush and try to chase time when there’s no depth in terms of understanding.”

She said the challenges around teaching and learning were serious and “if we don’t find a way of containing them now, the consequences are dire”.

“If you lose a year, it’s really like losing your fingers in the process, which are going to have long-term effects.”

Motshekga said they were monitoring pupil dropout seriously “because we know that if children have not been to school for a year or two they get completely alienated from education and it’s quite difficult to bring them back.”

Her director-general, Mathanzima Mweli, said: “It’s important to understand that we moved from what traditionally used to inform curriculum coverage as the work that teachers have covered.

“It has now gone much broader and deeper than that, and some of the aspects relate to what the written work of learners is telling us and juxtaposing that with what teachers are indicating in their records they have covered.”

He said it was also about assessment “that brings both the teaching and how learners encounter what teachers have covered”.

“Curriculum coverage, as we traditionally know it, has evolved to involve a number of quite comprehensive dimensions that would provide some comfort to us that when we say that we assessed curriculum coverage, these are the dimensions that have been covered.”

Mweli said they would look at all provinces to see what parts of the curriculum had been covered, what the gaps were and what was being done about them.

Prof Martin Gustafsson, an adviser to the department, said about half of the school year had been lost for a large number of pupils.

“The preferred approach across the system has been three days a week of schooling, so children are losing two days a week in almost half of the system and this has continued until recently.”

He said if children were not in contact with teachers, especially youngsters from disadvantaged communities, learning did not happen as it should.

“We also know that poor learners are less likely to learn when they are at home, whether [this relates to] materials coming from school or support from parents.”

Middle-class parents had often taken the initiative and supported pupils “in ways that in poorer communities parents just don’t have the resources and know-how to do”, Gustafsson said.