Scrapping the October school holidays would not have been the solution to the magnitude of problems the department of basic education needs to address.
On Sunday, basic education minister Angie Motshekga confirmed that after a meeting with the nine education MECs on Friday, it was decided the holidays would not be used to “to claw back lost time”.
The department’s initial proposal to do away with the October 4 to 8 break was slammed by teacher unions, governing bodies and a principals’ association.
That it even contemplated this route boggles the mind.
The announcement comes after the July holidays were extended by a week after a spike in Covid-19 infections.
Motshekga’s decision is welcome and commendable because cancelling the break would not have made up for the hours of lost learning due to the coronavirus pandemic.
It is also sensible that pupils be allowed time off after yet another stressful academic year.
By its own admission, the department faces a problem of pupils in the compulsory age group not going to school and needs to address this.
It is imperative it does, before focusing on playing catch on lost hours.
The sad reality is that the most affected pupils are from poor backgrounds and do not have the resources to equip and enable them to go to school.
The department should urgently find out why children are not going to school.
The sad reality is that the most affected pupils are from poor backgrounds and do not have the resources to equip and enable them to go to school.
The department also admitted that while teaching was progressing at “a better than expected level”, a key finding was that “very, very low levels of learning were taking place”.
“When we interrogate the evidence of learning, we really find almost no correlation between the teaching that has taken place and the learning that we are expecting. So our learning losses are really, really worrisome at this stage,” a senior department official was quoted as saying.
How it intends to address this problem is the million dollar question.
One hopes the three-year curriculum recovery plan it has implemented yields positive results.
Motshekga’s department also seems blasé about needing to invest in and empower pupils from poor backgrounds and better equip their schools to support them.
These same facilities are overcrowded and now have to deal with 100% attendance, which poses a health risk for teachers and pupils.
The myriad problems the department faces are much greater than cancelling the October break to play catch-up and children should not be paying for the sins of a seemingly unprepared department.
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