MPUMALANGA, KwaZulu-Natal and the Northern Cape have embarked on COVID-19 vaccination campaigns in schools in an attempt to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. 

Various schools in these provinces have been directed to cooperate with the Department of Health regarding student vaccinations and provide space and necessary facilities available for the purpose.

Department of Basic Education said last week that vaccination programme has brought life back to normal in many schools around the country.

All parents’ organisations, teacher unions and school governing bodies have been taken into confidence so that the risk of educational disruption could be minimized.

All learners 18 years and above will be vaccinated in their respective schools to ensure that teaching and learning are not disrupted.

While announcing the outcomes of the ANC NEC lekgotla on Monday, President Cyril Ramaphosa said everyone must be more proactive to assist government in consistently highlighting the safety of the vaccine and its efficacy in protecting people against serious illness and death.

“About 25 million doses of the J&J vaccine was completed at the Aspen plant in the E Cape, and more than half of these have been released in the market. Production is now mainly for use in SA and the rest of Africa,” said Ramaphosa.

“BIOVAC received a commitment from Pfizer/Biontech to produce their vaccine in SA, scaling up over a period to 100m doses and the SA firm is now getting ready to retool for this opportunity.”

The Northern Cape Department of Education has raised concern about the amount of learning losses as new COVID-19 cases continue to increase in the province’s schools.

At least 1 272 cases of the virus have been reported since 23 August to date with several schools closed and learning delayed.

In a statement, the department said the rising infections are compromising the learners’ ability to perform at a high level.

“This continues to take a devastating toll on the academic performance of learners and their preparedness for the examinations. It’s clear that the academic recovery will take much longer than expected, whilst the current reality is placing a massive strain on the entire education sector.

“The department is doing all that we can to support educators and learners across all grades during these difficult times,” the statement said.

The department said 410 new cases have been reported.

“The new COVID-19 infections include 28 educators, 367 learners and 15 support staff at various schools. We currently have seven schools which are closed in the province to allow for contact tracing and the disinfection of school premises,” the statement said.

KwaZulu-Natal has been ranked as the province with the third highest number of confirmed cases of Covid-19.

Schools in Kwa-Zulu Natal have seen an increase in the number of Covid-19 infections among teachers, support staff and students. The province has recorded more than 1100 reported cases in 350 schools in the past 3 weeks.

KZN Premier Sihle Zikalala announced that the department of health in the province will look to ramp up its vaccination program.

So far the province has inoculated more than 2 million people.

He said that the province is aiming to vaccinate around 60 000 people per day as this will help the province reach its goal of vaccinating 7.2 million people by March 2022.

Meanwhile, learners in Mpumalanga who could not register using the above information will be allowed to register and be vaccinated on-site.

Learners are expected to produce their identity documents or birth certificate at vaccination sites.

The following category of personnel is excluded from the mass vaccination process, however:
• Any person who tested positive with Covid-19; they can only be vaccinated 30 days after quarantine or isolation.
• Any person that vaccinated against flu in the preceding 14 days.
• Any person that was vaccinated using another vaccine (Pfizer or J&J under Sisonke) should not be revaccinated.

A vaccination date for special schools will be communicated to school principals once all logistics have been finalised.

The Mpumalanga MEC for education, Bonakele Majuba, visited Lethabong Secondary School, KwaMhlanga, Thembisile Hani Local Municipality, on Monday to monitor the programme.

• * Inside Education

THE Department of Basic Education has developed a three-year recovery plan to help make up for teaching time lost during the Covid-19 pandemic, says minister Angie Motshekga.

Responding in a written parliamentary Q&A this week, Motshekga said that the Recovery Annual Teaching Plan accounts for each subject in each grade and will help guide teachers to focus on key concepts, content, and skills to be taught per subject over the next three year period.

“The curriculum statement for each grade and subject was evaluated by a panel of curriculum content experts, and the content was reduced to ensure that only the core concepts, knowledge and skills are taught for each subject and grade.

“It is anticipated that over the next three years, learners would have covered the core content in the subject, and the curriculum statement, post the three year period, would be reviewed to take learners forward in their learning process,” she said.

Motshekga said that the three-year recovery period is tentative at this stage and could be extended if necessary based on the findings from the continuous research, monitoring and support provided by the department to schools.

Teachers will have to use their own judgement

While the department has developed guidelines for fundamental content that teachers must prioritise, Motshekga said that the variation in teaching time across the schools means that there is now a higher dependence on teachers using their own professional judgment.

“Teachers are provided with a planner and tracker, which lists the reduced content to be covered in the week, and teachers must record coverage to ensure that every teacher has a record of curriculum coverage, per grade, which will be transferred to the next teacher,” she said.

“This will ensure continuity from one grade to the next,” she said.

Motshekga said that plans to reduce the impact of future disruptions must be agile and should consider schools on an individual basis.

“In accommodating the various school contexts, much is left to the teacher’s professional judgment and expertise.

“Hence, teacher development, training and support is now more crucial capacitating the teacher to manage his/her classroom context.”

A new strategy and different weightings

Motshekga said that the plan also incorporates ‘assessment for learning’  as a teaching strategy.

“This implies that the teacher not only assesses at the end of the learning process to make a judgment on the learning gains but assess the learner on a continuous basis during the learning process to support the learning process.”

Assessment weightings in Grades 4-11 have also been adjusted to ensure optimal time for teaching and learning, she said.

“The key tenet of the strategy is to reduce the curriculum to focus on key concepts, skills and knowledge that are essential for deeper learning and the development of cognitive skills that will promote creative thinking, problem-solving and effective communication.”

TIM DALE LACE|

GORDON Matheson may not be a big name in South African cricket coaching circles, but he has a massive job on his hands. The 39-year-old has to turn Mpumalanga into a competitive unit in the new structure of South African domestic cricket.

“I know the challenges at hand as a smaller union,” he said. Matheson has faced tougher obstacles in his coaching career, which is why he is embracing the job at hand: to build a formidable side with fewer resources and talent than other provinces.

“I tried to play the game but my body broke down when I was around 21, with several injuries including a serious ACL [anterior cruciate ligament] injury. I took up coaching straight after school and when the injuries happened, it was a real chance for me to get serious about it as a proper job. I never wanted a 9 to 5 job, so throwing balls and being outside was a lot more of what I wanted.”

Matheson coached for more than 10 years at the grassroot level with a focus on schools cricket. He also spent time at the Jimmy Cook Cricket Academy at King Edward (KES VII) high school in Houghton, Johannesburg. But he still felt something was missing from his coaching arsenal, something he refers to as “getting into the player upstairs”.

“My philosophy as coach has always been about building a relationship before the cover drive, so this was an area I needed to improve on. I knew I had to add another string to my bow, so to speak. So, 10 years after everyone else had gone to university, I went and got my degree in sports psychology, something I knew I needed if I was going to take this coaching job seriously,” said Matheson.

“I went back to work, as head coach of KES VII, where among others, I coached Bryce Parsons and Tony de Zorzi. Tony was probably the best school cricket captain that I have ever seen. He understood the game better than anyone else I came across.”

De Zorzi captained South Africa’s Under-19 team in 2016. In February, he was announced as the Cobras’ captain for the CSA T20 Challenge. Matheson clearly has an eye for talent.

He had become restless in Johannesburg, tired of the rat race and unable to see how he was going to get a coaching job at a higher level. “I had been trying to get into Gauteng structures for quite a long time and worked at various schools and regional sides, but my career was not progressing. It was stagnating, in fact, and I wasn’t getting chances to better challenge myself. I started to look for avenues where I could coach at a higher level and once the restructuring happened, that created a space for me. Mpumalanga and Limpopo were to get a team, so maybe I could get a crack there.

“One year, when I was at Uplands School with the Jimmy Cook Academy, an individual with the school called Hendrik Joubert asked me to start up an academy there, and with my situation at Gauteng it seemed the perfect opportunity. And so from 2018, I started what is now Moose Academy at Uplands, which I hope will be here long after I am gone.”

Uplands is a private school in White River, Mpumalanga, that operates under the auspices of the Anglican Church. The school offers education to boys and girls from grades 0 to 12, with boarding from grade 4 upwards.

“This was a perfect base for me as I started working with many of the Mpumalanga players on a consultancy basis, which was a great help for when I got the full-time head coach job earlier this year,” Matheson said.

“Getting the job, as you will know, has meant we [the new coaches] have had many challenges, none more so than that the squads were decided before the coaches. Therefore we have, to a certain degree, had to make do with what we have. I am not complaining, as I am happy with this squad, but just pointing out it’s not ideal.”

Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) new domestic structure saw the organisation move from the six-franchise setup to two divisions made up of 15 first-class teams. Division one has Boland, Eastern Province, Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal Coastal, North West, Northerns and Western Province. Matheson’s Mpumalanga is in division two with South Western Districts, Easterns, KwaZulu-Natal Inland, Border, Limpopo and Northern Cape.

“Going back to provinces is a good thing, especially for teams like ourselves and Limpopo with the pathways from school, club, academy to province, which are crucial for us. Previously, the smaller provinces would lose whatever talent they had to the bigger union, primarily because they were playing franchise cricket. I also like the promotion-relegation setup, as we believe we can compete. It is also why the county cricket competition is so strong,” said Matheson.

“We as a team know we need to be competitive rather than being seen as an outing for opposition batters to fill their boots. That is undoubtedly our focus for this coming season and beyond. The talent is definitely there.”

But does Mpumalanga have enough of a talent pool to fall back on should injuries happen? “At the moment, very truthfully, we don’t have the talent needed to compete and that is a problem, no doubt about it. But we do have a nice mix of youngsters who are home-grown and maybe a year or two down the line they will be ready.”

This is partly why CSA is only bringing in the promotion-relegation component in the third season. “We need to work much harder and smarter with the schools and academies to make it work. CSA is not using CricViz, Opta, or any of the main stats-based companies, so we as a country are miles behind. It is frustrating, especially as a smaller union, to not have access to the best stats. Cricket Clinic [which we use is] untested. We now have head coaches who should be out on the field but are having to spend hours trying to assemble stats on this archaic application.”

In assembling their squads, fellow division-two sides South Western Districts and KwaZulu-Natal Inland have roped in Kolpak players Leus du Plooy and Cameron Delport respectively. Matheson took a different approach.

“I am not anti-Kolpak, but I just see things a different way and my players see it the same. Why not reward those players who have stayed the course over the last few years and in some quarters have been forgotten by the rest of the country? I think we have enough talent in the country, especially when it comes to transformation, with the likes of Wandile Makwetu and Keegan Petersen playing at a high level.”

The Social Justice and Nation Building hearings have highlighted the extent of the racism and belittling Black players have experienced in the national team setup. With some quarters viewing the need to transform the Proteas in line with the country’s demographics, Matheson views it as a duty of every coach in the country.

“Transformation is something I believe in, and when you coach in SA you [have to] understand what CSA is trying to do on this front, it is part of our cricket,” he said.

“I have been into townships as a young coach and I have seen the challenges first-hand for those players of colour. I knew the risks I was taking with my own car at the time, but we need to get to the players. Having to use three taxis to get to the ground is just not on. He hasn’t eaten, or showered. He has had a massive undertaking to get to the ground, exhausted physically and mentally, and we expect him to perform? No parents or support staff to watch him and we are surprised when he fails. We are putting too much pressure on the player.

“In Mpumalanga, our townships are extremely rural when compared to Joburg and Cape Town, a bowling machine is as foreign to them as the sport. The language barrier is a real challenge. Having someone come with us [usually a player] who can translate is so important.”

Matheson has worked hard to address these challenges, and if Mpumalanga can be competitive, it could well be a shining light for South African cricket as it moves into a new and hopefully bright venture.

Source: New Frame

IN August 2021, a six-year-old grade one learner in South Africa was raped, allegedly by a general worker in her school’s toilet. Public shock and outrage at the ongoing onslaught against children has brought renewed attention to young girls’ particular vulnerability to sexual violence.

One in five children are victims of sexual abuse in South Africa, representing 19.8% compared to a global average of 18% for girls and 8% for boys.

In the 2019/2020 Annual Crime Statistics report, more than 24,000 children were sexually assaulted in South Africa. Statistics are not readily available for schools and there is a great deal of under-reporting but it’s estimated that 22.2% of school children have been victims of violence.

Rape and other forms of violence in and around schools reflect a broader problem in the country.

At a joint sitting of parliament on gender-based violence in 2019, President Cyril Ramaphosa described the crisis of sexual violence as brutal war against women and girls.

But despite political and financial will to end the crisis, the problem remains widespread.

What’s behind this epidemic of sexual violence against children and what can be done about it?

In South Africa, the majority of rapes are committed by men.

This points to gender dynamics and the masculine norms that are allowed to flourish within families, communities and the broader social and cultural context of the country.

Men may be the problem, but they are part of the solution too.

What’s needed is to start early to invest in boys’ and girls’ capacities to transform the norms which give rise to sexual entitlement and rape.

This must happen in families, communities, through the media and online technologies and in schools. We have to alter the strong ideological grip that shapes male power based on subordination of others. Not all men rape and not all men are violent. The key is to address gender inequalities across institutions offering new ideals based on the potential to be different and peaceable.

Gender inequalities at school

By the time boys and girls start school, they have already learnt that men and women do not enjoy equal status in society. Prevalent cultural practices combine with patriarchy to produce a version of male power based on sexual entitlement, misogyny and violence which limits girls’ agency.

A recently published book that I co-edited, Gender, Sexuality and Violence in South African Educational Spaces, highlights evidence of the everyday struggles of boys and girls. It examines the ways in which gender and sexuality give rise to difference, inequalities and violence.

Boys and girls learn that men are often the heads of households or provide financial support.

Even in the absence of men from families, male power remains a cultural ideal.

In this gendered system of power, girls and “weaker” boys are often targeted through emotional, physical, sexual, and verbal forms of violence.

While boys and girls are both perpetrators and victims of violence, we found that there are huge gender disparities in the experience of violence, making schools very unsafe for girls.

This is not to say all boys and girls passively accept their circumstances. They often fight back and resist. But they need support from a young age to stop the violence. And schools play a role in this intervention.

Schools also reinforce these inequalities.

The violence comes in many forms in a culture that values girls less than boys. In previous research, girls told me they experienced everyday sexual harassment in the classroom, in the playground and in the school corridors and toilets.

Groping, fondling, touching body parts in sexualised ways, cat-calling, slut-shaming and coercive sexual practices are part of the rape culture at school. Girls experience violence from boys and are vulnerable to the sexual advances of male teachers.

Reporting sexual violence in schools

Between April 2020 and July 2021, more than 160 cases of sexual misconduct perpetrated by male teachers were reported to the South African Council for Educators.

When sexual violence is reported in schools, evidence suggests that teachers themselves are afraid to pursue the matter. Their fears stem from threats of violence from members of the community.

The mandatory requirement that adults must report sexual violence to the police remains problematic as a direct consequence of intimidation and fear of reprisals. Sexual violence remains under-reported and under-studied.

Facing the issue

Schools are in a contradictory position. On the one hand cases highlight how unsafe schools are and how detached the schooling experience is from the quest for gender equality.

But schools are also spaces to allow for the development of critical capacities where people should learn new ways of doing things.

What if schools and teachers were able to address sexual violence from the time children started school, instead of regarding these issues as not part of teachers’ work?

At the heart of the issue for boys, girls and teachers is to confront, from a very young age, the question of sex, sexuality and gender.

Reflecting on dominant patterns could begin to change them at school and in life generally. To see children as victims without the capacity to act on their circumstances is to fail them.

If teachers can talk about sex to young children in ways that bring attention to its ties to gender and violence, it might give children confidence to report instances of sexual violence and rape.

Approaching the problem requires an understanding of the complex entanglements between the personal, the social and the political context.

A quest for gender equality and an end to sexual violence takes determined collaborative effort to bring different institutions together.

• The Conversation

THE 15-year-old schoolboy, who fatally stabbed a Grade 8 student from Pholosho Junior Secondary School in Alexandra, has been remanded in custody at a Child and Youth Centre.

On Monday, Qhayiye Mgaye was stabbed to death at the school. 
The accused who has been charged with murder, appeared for a preliminary inquiry at the Alexandra Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday..

The matter was postponed to 8 September, when the accused will appear before the Child Justice Court.

Phindi Mjonondwane, a spokesperson for the NPA in Gauteng, said the pupil was charged with murder, and a preliminary inquiry was held.

“The state alleges that the death of the fellow learner ensued from a fight between the accused and some learners within the school premises during lunchtime, wherein the accused fetched a sharp object and stabbed the fellow learner.

“The learner was remanded in custody at a Child and Youth Centre until 8 September 2021, when the matter will be heard in the Child Justice Court,” said Mjonondwane

A spokesperson for the victim’s family told Power FM that they wanted to meet with the family of the murder accused, and they also believed that the teachers could have done more to prevent the incident.

He said the family was demanding answers from the school, and they also said violence would not solve a trying.

The deceased pupil will be buried next week in the Eastern Cape.

Meanwhile, Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi, earlier in the week, condemned the fatal stabbing of the Grade 8 pupil and conveyed his condolences to the family of the deceased Grade 8 pupil.

“We vehemently condemn the violent behaviour which led to the death of a learner allegedly, at the hands of his peer on school grounds. It is absolutely unacceptable. The SGB must investigate this incident and take necessary disciplinary action against the perpetrator,” said Lesufi.

He has met with the school and the family of the deceased.

The Department of Basic Education plans to boost its maths and science capabilities after schools fell further behind in these subjects due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Presenting to parliament this week, the department said that matric performance in these two subjects has been low for several years, with 12 districts specifically targeted because they were under-performing.

The department said it has now developed a new training programme to help assist these districts, including a collaboration with Cuban specialists to design new course materials for maths and science at schools.

An online training course has also been developed for subject advisors in Grade 8 and Grade 9.

Data published by the Telkom Foundation in August shows the Covid-19 pandemic has also hurt school learners in the critical areas of mathematics and science.

The data reveals that the lack of face-to-face learning under lockdown has seen high-school learners regressing.

“The Telkom Foundation has been monitoring data from schools we support across the country since 2018,” said Sarah Mthintso, chief executive of the Telkom Foundation.

“Regrettably, we have seen the negative impact of the pandemic – and the unavoidable closure of schools – has had on learning.”

Globally, the World Bank estimates that the closure of schools affected 1.6 billion learners. South Africa was among those countries forced to impose strict lockdown conditions, which halted classroom learning.

The Telkom Foundations initial diagnostic assessments conducted with grade 9 found that several learners had deficiencies in math and science, many of which were carried from the intermediate phase at primary school, impacting their ability to excel in these subjects.

This meant that the Foundation had to focus on both grade-level and remedial approaches to close the gaps. The grade 9 learners surveyed showed an improvement from a Grade 3 level understanding to a grade 5 level before the impact of the Covid pandemic.

“Over the years, we have seen learner improvement as a result of this targeted hybrid approach, however with Covid-19 restrictions and learners missing contact learning time, some have regressed in key areas, particularly problem solving, algebra and measurement,” said Mthintso.

Dropouts 

In addition to subject performance issues, the department also raised concerns around the number of learner dropouts and lost teaching time.

About 80% of learning was lost in 2020, while 50% of the 2021 school has been lost for many learners, it said.

Civil society organisations and education experts have now published an open letter to the Department of Basic Education warning about the high drop-out rate in South Africa’s schools.

The letter, which was published in the Daily Maverick, argues that Covid-19 school closures, coupled with the economic shocks of the pandemic, have exacerbated a dropout crisis “long in the making”.

The group called for a coordinated national dropout prevention plan to help address these losses.

“Even before the pandemic, available figures suggested that four out of 10 learners who started school in Grade 1 would drop out before completing matric,” the group said. “The number of learners who have not re-enrolled due to Covid-19 exacerbates this worrying trend.”

The group added that the number of South Africa’s dropouts is still not clear – varying widely from the government’s official figure of 300,000 learners to upwards of 750,000 learners in the latest NIDS-CRAM survey.

To address these and other issues, the group recommended the following interventions:

• Encourage community involvement in getting learners back to class by leveraging structures like street committees and churches to help trace learners who are unaccounted for;
• Develop uniform attendance monitoring systems (until Grade 12), from the national level all the way to schools, to get a real sense of the scope of learner disengagement and dropout;
• Revise the curriculum to promote learning recovery, in consultation with the latest data from the DBE’s curriculum audit – as well as subject specialists, teachers, curriculum developers and other stakeholders;
• Initiate a sustained and comprehensive, data-driven, Back-to-School plan (until Grade 12) to reach learners who have dropped out and to assist them with re-enrolment. This must include the development of a national psychosocial support strategy that is linked to an early warning system;
• Hold regular discussions about “Care and Support in Schools” at national and provincial levels;
• Establish a learnership on how to use data to inform interventions. Capacitate school staff to use data, with the necessary infrastructure and human resources for data collection and management in place;
• Make dropout prevention an explicit goal of the education system. Dropout should be a key performance indicator for provincial education departments, and the national department must set reduction targets to hold officials accountable.

Curriculum recovery plan 

The opposition Democratic Alliance called for a curriculum recovery plan to help make up for lost teaching time.

The party said schools lost 50-75% of learning time in 2020, and the 2021 educational year is following the same track. It warned that foundation education learners are expected to suffer the most in their following school years if this is not addressed.

“The Department of Basic Education must ensure that the provinces and various district circuits engage with teaching staff to truly understand the various schools in every district’s specific needs and concerns in completing the curriculum and to find solutions in bridging those shortfalls.

“The provincial departments must also ensure that the districts engage with their local municipalities to find safe public spaces where extra measures to increase learning time could be implemented.”

The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed the growing chasms in South Africa’s schooling system, and nearly two years of broken learning time has exacerbated the challenges learners face in getting a quality education, it said.

“The minister and her department need to ensure that their time is well-spent in finding innovative solutions to the crisis.

“World-wide innovative solutions have been found, and there are many schools in South Africa that have also risen to the challenge. The minister must take inspiration from these innovations and ensure that no child would be left behind.”