WESTERN CAPE NEWS - Western Cape Minister of Education, Debbie Schäfer, shared her disappointment after President Cyril Ramaphosa announced last night that schools will close for four weeks.
In a press release this morning, Schäfer said that arguments from governing body associations, NGOs and medical specialists all highlight the positives of children being at school and the negatives of not being at school.
“All their arguments have been swept aside on a wave of political expediency.“
Her opinion is that this is an attempt to bring each province down to the lowest common denominator because ANC-run provinces have not used the lockdown period to adequately prepare their health systems, and have decades of neglecting their school infrastructures. She said the department supports having a break for two weeks on the basis that many teachers and learners have been working during the lockdown.
“This should be a complete break for people to rest and anxiety levels to dissipate.”
Schäfer says an additional four weeks is going to cause immeasurable damage to the children and the economy. “Keeping learners engaged during school closures is difficult, and we are likely to see a regression from prior learning levels as a result. Dropout rates also increase during protracted school closures, and the impact is greatest on the enrolment of girls, according to a number of international organisations,” she said.
She pointed out that, while schools are closed, the economy is open, “meaning that parents who are not teachers have to go to work. Parents of millions of children who would otherwise be safely at school must now scramble to find someone to care for their children so that they can go to work.” The reality is, says Schäfer, is that many of these children will have to stay home alone, and health experts are already reporting the terrible consequences in terms of injury or death of unsupervised children.
According to the department they are not seeing mass spreading of the virus at schools. “We do not have evidence of a greater risk to adults or children at school relative to other places. So, the decision to close schools for another protracted period is not based on science or the facts,” Schäfer explained. She said the DBE has won three court cases against people or organisations that sought to close schools, by illustrating that the negative effects of closing schools are outweighed by the positives of keeping them open.
“It is clear that this is the height of irrationality, and not backed up by the facts.”
Schäfer says she believes that this decision is going to cost South Africa dearly in the future, and it is once again the poor who are going to suffer the most.
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