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Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga confirmed that the 1st of June is being considered as a return date for learners even though it’s only a tentative date for now.

She said the date was first subject to Cabinet approval, after which it would be gazetted.

The minister clarified that schooling would not resume on 4 May in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Only senior officials will start working from 4 May to help with preparations, followed by school management from 11 May, and from 18 May, teachers will come in and prepare, according to Motshekga.

The Basic Education Department has also taken a decision to postpone the May/June Matric rewrite examinations.  The exams were due to be written by more than 350 000, mainly part-time candidates, from 4 May. 

“Due to the lockdown, we have not been able to complete our preparations, which include the printing and distribution of question papers, the appointment of invigilators, markers and the general readiness in marking centres,” said the Minister.

The May/June examinations will now be merged with the November examinations. A new time-table for the merged examinations will be communicated urgently, as part of preparing the system for the biggest matric examination ever seen in the country. 

“We estimate that one million and one-hundred thousand candidates will sit for the end-of-year matric examinations in this merged format, which includes the Amended Senior Certificate and National Senior Certificate,” said the Minister.

However the have been concerns that the government is not giving the school transportation a priority when there are thousands of pupils that travel by scholar transport,most of the scholar operators fall under different associations as per area, they have also been affected by this crisis from the closure of all schools, they are unable to run business and there is no income.

Few years ago in order to run their business they had to apply for permits to carry pupils and it was only then when they were told that they have to apply through the associations in their areas, regular meetings were held and in order to operate they needed the following.

Business insurance
Passenger liability
Contracts signed by parents
Route structure from first pick up
SARS good standing certificate
Certification of ID documents and license

Also a monthly fee had to be paid regularly to operate and disks were given in order to know who has paid to run for the month, these were part of the requirements from the Department of transport and associations had to ensure that in place in order for operators to operate legally.

Nonetheless, given the current lockdown, scholar operators had hope that government will assist them as they have promised to help the taxi industry,Minister of Transport Fikile Mbalula announced that as the taxi industry counts the costs of the COVID-19 pandemic, intergovernmental consultations on a Taxi Industry Relief intervention are at an advanced stage.

“The Departments of Transport, Small Business, Labour, Trade and Competition as well as the National Treasury have agreed to support the industry and are currently looking at various modalities of assistance,” the Transport Ministry in a statement said.

However the operators feels that they are not part of the plan including safety measures that should be followed to curb the spread of the virus,for example sanitizing products should be provided,so that they can also sanitize their cars in order to keep the kids safe, and we caught  up with few operators they have raised the following concerns.

1)Parents are not willing to make payments for services that have not been rendered.

2)When schools reopen in phases, it will be very difficult to take few children at a time frame.

3)Due to the above point the cost of running the vehicle on many trips will be more loss of income.

4)The lock down has affected most of them extremely bad due no work no pay.

5)They have no other source of income for most them.

While some operators wont be able to make ends meet, the uncertainty around whether schools will reopen is causing panic.

The discussions between the taxi industry has also extended to broader issues such as the formalization and subsidization of the taxi industry as well as the National Taxi Indaba scheduled to take place later this year.