It was not a smooth start for some pupils as schools reopened for the 2024 academic year on Wednesday.
In KwaZulu-Natal, floods brought about by the heavy rains made getting to school difficult for pupils.
Some had to walk across a large tree trunk to cross a river from Zwelisha village to Phoenix.
Meanwhile, Phoenix Secondary School could not resume its activities on Wednesday after the premises caught alight, allegedly after it was petrol-bombed.
The administration block and library was destroyed. Schooling was put on hold until next Monday for cleanup efforts to be conducted.
In Limpopo, premier Stanley Mathabatha made the rounds at some schools, where he highlighted that hygiene, brought about by the use of pit latrines was still a cause for concern.
Mathabatha, however, said the province was making strides in eradicating pit toilets, saying 53% of schools had flushing toilets.
Other issues that were listed in Limpopo were overcrowding in some matric classes, particularly in schools that had performed well in the 2022 academic year.
In Gauteng on Wednesday, scores of parents were still queuing to get placement for their children. Others marched with their children to the Johannesburg West district office, wanting their children to be granted placement.
As of Wednesday, about 21,000 pupils in the province were still not placed.
According to the Gauteng education department, this was due to late applications by parents during the online application period.
I would like to champion for the morale of teachers and their working conditions and what they go through every day. We are talking about teaching, marking and discipline in schools, and I think the class size and what happens in the classroom is where I would like some attention to be given.
— Dr Suraiya Naicker
TimesLIVE Premium spoke to two parents, both of whom had only started applying for their children this week.
One, who managed to secure placement, said he had tried his luck by inquiring directly at a Fourways school, instead of trying the online application system. He had, over the festive holidays, decided to move his child from Limpopo to Gauteng after realising the elderly relative who was taking care of him would no longer be able to do so.
Thabelo Tharaga said he luckily got space.
“I think it’s best to do a manual application because with this online application you are not guaranteed your child will get admission,” he said.
But other parents were not so lucky. Some who arrived at the same school on Wednesday were referred to district offices.
Another parent from Kya Sand said he hoped they would admit his daughter who was supposed to start grade 2.
Boitshepo Moyo said he had recently moved his child from Zimbabwe and was hoping to secure space for her soon.
“I think this is the best place for her, hence I want her to study here, but I don’t know if they will admit her,” he said.
Speaking at the reopening of the renovated Kgatoentle Secondary School in Ga-Rankuwa on Wednesday morning, Gauteng education MEC Matome Chiloane asked parents for patience as they try to place the stranded pupils.
“We continue to appeal to parents to work with us on this matter. We do have high-pressure areas because of the massive residential development that has been taking place ... We continue to collaborate with our schools and parents, even to roll out temporary mobile classrooms in our schools,” he said.
The Free State also struggled with overcrowding and some parents failed to secure placement, with many queuing in the hope of finding space for their children.
Free State education MEC Makalo Mohale assured parents their children would soon be placed as the province’s district office had put a plan in place since Monday to find and allocate space to pupils.
Issues of overcrowding and lack of sufficient resources are an ongoing problem, with some classes having more than 60 pupils each and some children have to share prescribed reading books.
Dr Suraiya Naicker, head of the department of education leadership and management, told TimesLIVE Premium that such overcrowding was concerning as it affected teachers’ morale.
“I would like to champion for the morale of teachers and their working conditions and what they go through every day. We are talking about teaching, marking and discipline in schools, and I think the class size and what happens in the classroom is where I would like some attention to be given. We need to think of solutions and strategic planning in that aspect,” she said.
Another challenge Naicker noticed while assessing schools is the lack of resources, where children share prescribed reading books, novels and plays during lessons.
“The teachers would say that children take the books home and they don’t come back. Looking at resources and how to better manage them is very important. You don’t want a lesson where three pupils are sharing a novel or a play. The use of resources is important for the schooling year,” she said.
After the Covid-19 pandemic, it is likely that many pupils will be affected by the extended loss of learning time due to school closures in 2020, said education expert Prof Mary Metcalfe.
This year’s matric group was in grade 8 during the pandemic and had to attend school on a rotational basis.
Another impact, Metcalfe said, will be the anticipated budget reduction for the education sector across the country.
“This may impact on class size, the availability of learning and teaching resources and on school transport. In my view, the key challenge that we must address is in developing concrete plans to improve reading and mathematics from the foundation phase,” Metcalfe said.
Naicker emphasised the importance of literacy, which she says should continue way past the foundation phase to at least grade 6. Tests have shown that language and literacy have become a problem, particularly comprehension, among pupils who learn and read in English.
“I believe that we haven’t cracked that aspect and if they need to reimagine the curriculum, now might be a time to focus on literacy more in the earlier grades right up to grade 6, so that we can focus on the comprehension part of things.
“It is a problem and distressing that pupils might be able to read, but what is the point of interpretation if the pupils are unable to find meaning in what they are reading,” she said.
Experts believe there should be changes when it comes to the use of online resources to assist in teaching and a focus on improving the quality of education.
“I would like to see improvements in learner performance across all quintiles and across all provinces, much less grade failure and repetition and more [pupils] proceeding and succeeding until the end of grade 12,” Metcalfe said.
Naicker encouraged teachers and school management to find innovative solutions to use technology and the online space to improve methods of teaching.
With the current school-going child being exposed to better technology and having access to the internet, she said teachers can use games and online methods to revise the way they teach. However, such teachers should take relevant courses and programmes to be up to date with the current online trends.
“The school management team, in most cases, is the older generation of teachers and senior colleagues. In terms of online training, we find the younger generation [of teachers] is more in favour of that. School management doesn’t need to shy away and there should be upskilling of the school management team in terms of e-learning. That is where I would like the department to give some focus,” she said.
— Additional reporting by Phathu Luvhengo
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