By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Basic education minister Angie Motshekga says that the schools are ready to welcome pupils back on a full-time basis.
At a briefing on Sunday, Motshekga said children at primary, secondary and special schools would resume full-time attendance. She added that the scrapping of the rotational timetable, which was implemented due to the Covid-19 pandemic, had been gazetted.
The move comes after a Cabinet decision at the end of January to end rotational learning with immediate effect, and to remove social distancing measures.
Motshekga added that most primary schools had already returned to full attendance, and that mainly high schools relied on rotational timetabling before the Cabinet announcement.
She said that the Department of Basic Education had consultations with education organisations over the last week about various concerns around school infrastructure needs.
Motshekga said infrastructure was a challenge before the pandemic and was not due to the resumption of full-time schooling this week.
She added that non-pharmaceutical interventions would have to be strengthened while the department worked to address the issue.
The department is in talks with the National Treasury to resolve infrastructure challenges, Motshekga added.
“We are aware that we have a problem. It’s a pre-Covid-19 problem.”
In some provinces, mobile classrooms and additional teachers have already been secured to alleviate overcrowding.
Motshekga also said pupils returning to school full-time will help in implementing the migration of the Early Childhood Development (ECD) sector.
Last year, government decided to shift the ECD sector from the Department of Social Development (DSD) to the Department of Basic Education (DBE), which was lauded as ” a great initiative” by many.
“We also are excited that with the return to schools, we will also be able to facilitate our work around the ECD function shift. So the migration gives us, as a sector, an opportunity to craft and implement innovative strategies to strengthen the foundation of learning.
“For this reason, one of the key priorities that we have is to focus on this ECD shift which is going to begin from 1 April this year,” she said.
The process of ECD migration was first announced in the 2019 State of the Nation Address (Sona) by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Motshekga added that the return to full-time classes will also assist with the recovery plan.
“The return to normal timetabling will assist the sector to intensify its implementation of the curriculum recovery plan. The learning losses incurred in the past two years are indisputably devastating.
“The first step towards addressing the crisis of lost learning, is to prevent further disruptions to school time, and prevent other learning losses, while ensuring the health and safety of our school communities. The second step is to introduce measures to catch up on the time, as well as the teaching and learning that was lost through the Covid-19 pandemic, in particular,” she said.
The basic education department said of the 7.7-million qualifying pupils, at least 1.2-million have been vaccinated with 15,000 pupils vaccinated in the past 24 hours.