Nyakallo Tefu 

MEC for Education in the Western Cape Debbie Schafer says her department will start with cleaning and sanitizing all schools in the province to make sure it is safe for learners to return in June. 

This follows an announcement by Basic Education Angie Motshekga last week that schools will re-open in June, starting with Grade 12 and Grade 7.

“We will be doing proper cleaning and making sure the teachers are ready for the learners come June,” said Schafer. 

The plan set out by DBE is to have schools reopen in phases, with two sets of groups returning as the country finds ways to fight the COVID-19 pandemic that has hit the world. 

Schools are set to reopen on 1 June 2020, and matrics and Grade 7’s will be the first group to go back followed by other grades. 

Motshegka said having Grade 7s and 12s meant that the learners would have the entire school to themselves, making it easier to practice social distancing and other safety protocols.

“Several measures to ensure that the education sector do not contribute to the spread of the virus will be put in place before learners return to schools. In this regard, the department would be working with the department of health and department of transport,” said Motshekga. 

The minister further announced that teachers will return to schools on May 18 2020 in order to prepare themselves for the continuation of the 2020 academic year. 

“Our department is also working to identify high-risk teachers and we may need funding for additional teachers in order to manage classes and social distancing measures when more grades return”, said Schafer.

The education sector will return on May 4^th in order to get the schools cleaned and ready for schooling to commence.

One of the rules that have been set out with the return of learners is that schools need to ensure that the maximum number of learners in a class is 40. 

“The issue with 40 people in a class will begin when the rest of the other grades return, there are just some schools where we won’t be able to do that,” said Schafer.

College students, kicked off campus by coronavirus, have a new extracurricular activity: litigation.

United States undergraduates have sued more than 50 schools, demanding partial tuition, room-and-board and fee refunds after they shut down.

The proliferating breach-of-contract suits, many of them filed over the last week, target some of the biggest names in higher education: state systems including the University of California and Arizona State, as well as private institutions such as Columbia, Cornell and New York University.

The students’ lawyers, advertising on sites such as Collegerefund2020.com, are seeking class-action status on behalf of hundreds of thousands of students. While legal experts say the lawsuits face high hurdles, they could potentially involve billions of dollars in claims.

To justify annual prices that can top $70,000 a year, colleges have long advertised their on-campus experience, including close contact with professors and peers who will become a lifelong network. Now, millions of students are instead studying online.

Many of the suits are seeking compensation for the difference in value between the virtual and in-person experience. Plaintiffs include Grainger Rickenbaker, a freshman majoring in real estate management and development at Philadelphia’s Drexel University, which charges more than $50,000 in tuition and another $16,000 in room, board and other fees.

“I am missing out on everything that Drexel’s campus has to offer — from libraries, the gym, computer labs, study rooms and lounges, dining halls,” said Rickenbaker, 21, who is suing for a partial refund as he works remotely from his home in Charleston, South Carolina.

Most colleges declined to comment on the lawsuits. The California State System said it would defend itself against a complaint that understates the services it’s still providing. Arizona State said it was giving a $1,500 credit to all students who moved out of university housing by April 15.

Peter McDonough, general counsel for American Council on Education, a college trade group, said schools are battling circumstances outside their control. They’re putting tremendous time and resources into supporting remote learning, while still paying professors and bearing other costs, he said.

“Faculty and staff are literally working around the clock,” McDonough said. “We’re in the middle of a catastrophe. Schools are doing their best to work their way through it.”

Some colleges, including Harvard, Columbia, Middlebury, and Swarthmore, have agreed to refund unused room and board. Others are offering credits or haven’t decided what to do, according to Jim Hundrieser, a vice president at the National Association of College and University Business Officers.

Payments can add up. Small residential institutions, for instance, may be refunding $2 million to $3 million, while large schools with several thousand on-campus students are likely to return $8 million to $20 million or more, Hundrieser said. For individual students, the funds can be quite a boon in an economic crisis. A college charging about $8,000 for a semester’s room and board that cancelled midway might be sending students a check of about $4,000.

The federal suits vary in their demands. The Anastopoulo Law Firm in Charleston represents students at roughly a dozen schools, including Drexel, and is seeking a partial return of all unreimbursed payments. In its suits on behalf of California public college students, Chicago-based DiCello Levitt Gutzler is asking only for the return of student fees for such items as transportation and student organisations, which can nevertheless total thousands of dollars a year.

Both the University of California and the California State systems have already agreed to return unused room-and-board. Cal State said it’s still providing services, such as counseling, and will refund fees “that have been unearned by the campus.”

However the complaints are decided, they highlight the stakes for the $600 billion-plus a year higher education industry. Public universities rely on tuition and fees for 20 per cent of their total revenues; private non-profit colleges, 30 per cent, according to the most recent federal data.

In the fall, if many schools open only online, they would forfeit room and board fees and face pressure to charge less tuition.

Colleges can expect to see more suits soon, threatening what attorney Anthony Pierce called “an economic tsunami.”

(Source: Bloomberg)

Mitch Rankin

The education crisis in Africa seems an old-age predicament among many issues. In the year 2000, an estimated 970 million children were robbed of their childhoods due to ‘childhood enders’ – life-changing events like child marriage, early pregnancy, exclusion from education, sickness, malnutrition, and violent deaths.

That number today has been reportedly reduced to 690 million – meaning that at least 280 million children are better off today than they would have been two decades ago.

Together, China and India account for more than half of the global decline in stunting alone. But what of the African education crisis?

Here are observations:

In South Africa alone, millions of children continue to be robbed of a childhood. We now need to continue to push to reach every last child and ensure they receive the childhood they deserve.

Local governments can and must do more to give every child the best possible start in life. Greater investment and more focus is needed if we are to see every child can enjoy a safe, healthy, and happy childhood.

For those countries that made the most progress, including Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Niger, the results showed that political choices can matter more than national wealth.

With COVID-19, the conditions of community rural schools will be worse as maintenance will be made impossible by budgets diverted to address more urgent needs related to hospitalization, care, and daily subsistence. What are these school conditions that beg for our attention? Let’s peek at a child’s diary:

Dear Diary

My friend Petunia Buthelezi wrote to me yesterday and said she is not sure when they will be going back to school as the education department and the government is in conflict about social distancing measures and how they would apply in a classroom setting. She has 65 fellow students in the class…. How does social distancing work in a school like this?

South African education crisis

In many parts of South Africa, the schooling system looks more like a war zone than a field ripe for fertile minds.

Amnesty International recently reported a bleak picture of the basic education system that is failing learners from poorer communities. Titled Broken and Unequal: The State of Education in South Africa, it highlights the dire situation of South African education.

This is a far cry from the words spoken by President Cyril Ramaphosa at his state of the nation address in 2019, that in the next six years the government would provide every school child in South Africa with a tablet.

Many schools would be grateful to have a toilet. Of the 23,471 public schools, 20,071 have no laboratory, 18,019 have no library and most have dilapidated restrooms with what passes for toilets. Of the schools, 37 have no sanitation facilities at all.  4,358 schools are using pit latrines and 269 schools have no electricity.

This story is not unique to South Africa, and the same issues as the African education crisis are afflicting many developing countries. 

If we look at this bleak picture of education, mirrored in many parts of the world, it is almost inconceivable to marry it to the bright picture of an interconnected online education system that provides an equitable, fair learning platform for every student.

The Solution? Unless pressure is applied to the governments in emerging markets to spend the allocated funds, the education system will remain defunct for the foreseeable future. In South Africa, the education budget was 16.7% of government expenditure in 2019/2020.

If a significant portion of it had been spent correctly and not misappropriated, the amount would have gone a long way to alleviate the plight of a sinking education system in the country.

Sub Saharan Africa and Asia

In 2006 UNESCO, estimated that over 84 percent of classrooms had over 40 pupils per teacher. 

Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia have the most schools with pupil-teacher ratios (PTR) exceeding 40:1 are in. 

SubSaharan Africa has the highest PTR with Congo having a PTR of 54:1, Mali 55:1, Mozambique 67:1, Rwanda 65:1, Ethiopia, and Malawi around 70:1, 

Afghanistan with 83:1, Cambodia 50:1, and Bangladesh 50:1., and other South Asian countries have high PTR. (UNESCO, Institute of statistics, 2008). 

The pressure to fulfill the international mandate of providing more teachers has more and more developing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, South, and East Asia, and Latin America regions using the services of under-qualified teachers, who not only are inexperienced but also have no expertise in teaching a classroom of 50+ pupils. 

Large class sizes often go beyond 100 pupils

The classroom conditions are particularly acute in a number of developing countries where large class sizes often swell up and go beyond 100 pupils. We see a lack of planning by government agencies. Or is it a matter of focus and involvement with children? Is it a matter of lack of resources or inattentiveness to the African education crisis?

The rush to fill the physical classroom void left in the wake of Coronavirus in developed countries highlights the growing gap for marginalized students that do not have access to technology infrastructure or data, leaving them further behind each day that passes. 

On the one hand, we have the resources, finances, and students. And on the other hand, we have corrupt officials in governments, the custodians of the education system, and our future workforce. 

Teaching is moving online, on an untested and unprecedented scale. Student assessments are also moving online, with a lot of trial and error and uncertainty for everyone. Many assessments have simply been canceled. Importantly, these interruptions will not just be a short-term issue, but can also have long-term consequences for the affected cohorts and are likely to increase inequality.

The education crisis now becomes more insurmountable, bigger than the problem of latrines. The case of the broken and unequal education crisis becomes highlighted now with incompetence and corruption.

A child to the rescue? Or will adults redeem themselves?

Do we need a Greta Thurnberg to take on the African education crisis and say her emotive and daring speech during the UN Climate Summit:

I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet, you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. Yet, I am one of the lucky ones. Children are suffering.

Crypto investors are looking at Africa as the new hub for business expansion and we look at only a part of the incoming revenues to be channeled towards the region with the “worst education system”. We are encouraged by this prediction by one crypto writer:

The Africa Bitcoin love affair is yielding encouraging results for the crypto. Bitcoin use cases are growing exponentially, and developing economies are discovering every new way to boost BTC adoption. This narrative has played out pretty well for the African continent, where Bitcoin adoption is going strong.

I am reminded of the saying Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? a Latin phrase found in the work of the Roman poet Juvenal from his Satires (Satire VI, lines 347–348). It is literally translated as “Who will guard the guards themselves?”

Mmaki Jantjies

South Africa’s education system is complex, with historical inequalities dating back to apartheid. Most of the country’s pupils come from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Language is an issue; most pupils do not speak English as a mother tongue, yet English dominates in many classrooms.

And, as the COVID-19 crisis has showed, there’s a huge digital divide at play.

The ongoing effects of the virus have kept pupils and teachers at home. This has necessitated a move to e-learning.

In theory, this could be an important step towards a fairer education system.

Digital platforms enable equitable access for learners to digital books, simulated science labs and related innovative learning resources.

Electronic and mobile learning can thus be seen as an additional learning resource that can also help enhance access to learning tools.

Access to e-learning is not a panacea to the challenges in South African education. But it does provide an opportunity to make access to learning resources for all children more equitable.

But the reality in South Africa, as in most developing countries, is very different. Teachers have varying digital skills. Many families and teachers also cannot afford the data necessary to sustain some online learning activities.

COVID-19 has shown that technology is no longer a luxury but an important component of the education process. In presenting solutions, a wide range of factors must be considered. These range from access to computers, to teacher training, to the social and economic challenges faced by teachers, pupils and schools in their communities.

National focus

There are already some strategic policies and resources in place to help schools and teachers use technology as part of the teaching and learning process.

Information and Communications Technology is also taught as a school subject. But the government needs to consider an additional range of issues if it’s going to solidify a commitment towards e-learning. This includes policies and strategies surrounding connectivity, data costs, skills development, hardware access as well as contextual multilingual digital learning content.

Many schools have little or no technology facilities. Some have tablets and only a few have advanced computing laboratories. Formal training in applied technology skills is provided for teachers who want to teach a technology specialist subject in schools.

But all this needs to be extended. Adequate digital skills training should become a mandatory component of all teacher training programmes in universities, universities of technology and colleges. While there have been several digital training programmes for both in-service and trainee teachers in some provinces, it is time for a concerted national programme to ensure all teachers are skilled in digital teaching and technology.

Several studies have reflected on the innovative use of mobile phones and related applications to support learning in South Africa.

But South Africa has some of the highest data costs on the continent. This means that pupils can’t always easily access information on their mobile phones.

In the wake of South Africa’s first COVID-19 cases, as schools closed, several educational sites were zero rated; this means they are now free to use. This should be extended to support home schooling and any future returns to school, so that data costs don’t keep schools in poorer communities from accessing these resources. Policies to enable such beyond the pandemic should be considered.

Projects that work

As an educator who focuses on Education Technology research, I know there is enormous enthusiasm among teachers and pupils to become more digitally savvy. I have worked with a number of under-resourced schools, supporting the teaching of Science, Technology and Maths subjects through basic software applications, learning management systems and other free-to-use cloud-based education platforms.

When pupils and teachers receive the right support for digital learning, the response is often remarkable. I have met many teachers who willingly dedicate their weekends and school holidays to digital learning and teaching, with no financial incentives but a passion to equip pupils with digital skills.

I am particularly proud of a collaboration between computing students from the University of the Western Cape with teachers in a high school in an underprivileged part of Cape Town. Their work together has cultivated computing skills and sparked learners’ interest in other subjects like chemistry and astronomy.

A similar collaboration has been expanded to the North West province and convinces me that there are thousands of teachers who are keen to retrain to prepare their pupils for the digital era.

The COVID-19 crisis offers a unique opportunity to harness this enthusiasm. With the right support and training, digital teaching and learning can become ubiquitous even in resource-strapped environments.

(Source: The Conversation)

Tuks’s Gift Leotlela can honestly claim to be South African athletics forgotten sprinter, but as it said you can’t “slow” a quality sprinter down forever.

During the Gauteng North Championships at Tuks, he clocked a time of 10.31s in the 100m. It was his best in three years.  Since April 2017 he hardly raced. First, it was due to a lower back fracture. Then his hamstrings started to act up. 

To Leotlela’s credit, he never considered quitting as an option even during the “darkest of days”. It was a dream of running that perfect race that kept him going. 

In 2016 the Tuks sprinter was the “talk of the track”. At the World Junior Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland he won a silver medal in the 200m (20.59s). He was fourth in the 100m (10.28s). Best was that he had qualified in the 200m to compete at the Rio Olympics. It meant being only 18 years and two months old he was the youngest track and field athlete to represent South Africa at the Games.

Leotlela continued to get faster. In 2017 he set a South African junior record running 10.12s in the 100m. At the time only 10 South African senior sprinters had run faster times. Another highlight was beating the legendary Wayde van Niekerk over 100 metres in Bloemfontein. 

Then disaster struck. The Tuks sprinter got injured during the South African Championships in Potchefstroom. It led to him not racing for nearly two years. 

His first dedicated attempt at a comeback only happened last year in 
Europe. From a statistical perspective, his first race could be considered as catastrophic.

He ran a time of 11.40s in the 100m.

Leotlela was, however far from despondent.

All that mattered to him was to be in the starters blocks hearing the starter saying: “on your marks . . . get set . . .”

“I did not realise how I missed hearing those words. My adrenaline started pumping. Unfortunately, I was really rusty. It led to me being slow out of the blocks, and not really getting any faster. Not that it mattered. I was racing in front of spectators. It was fantastic.”

Leotlela is realistic about running 10.31s during the provincial championships. 

“My start was terrible . . . really terrible. I will need to work on it. My top-end speed was sort of OK.”

According to the Tuks sprinter, his biggest challenge this season was to learn to trust his body again.

“When you have been injured for such a long time, you start to doubt whether your body will hold up under pressure. I know now that it can. I would have loved to compete in a few more races, but I understand why all sport had to come to an abrupt halt.

“There will still be plenty of time to race. Now at least I got more time to work on getting faster and to finish my studies,” said the final year information science student.

Leotlela was confident of dipping under 10.10s if the season had continued.

He also had planned to race the 200m. 

(Source: University of Pretoria)

CLASSROOM CORNER

Teacher of the Week

Teacher: Noni Julia Hlahle

School: Moriting Primary School in Tembisa, Gauteng

Noni Julia Hlahle found her calling as a school teacher from an early age because she took leadership roles during her Sunday school days.

Hlahle also formed a Youth Club, an initiative that prompted people to believe that she had qualities of being a teacher and a leader.

“I started seeing myself as a teacher from a young age and since then the love of teaching developed in me,” she says.

From there she just wanted to see herself being a qualified teacher.

Her passion and love for teaching and interacting with learners, teachers and community members contributed in making her a provincial winner.

She will always pride herself for participating in the nation-al level and this means that she is making a difference as an educator, leader and follower of the South African schooling system.

“I have actualised my dream and become the best, excellent leader in primary school,” she says.

Her main challenge is facing learners with learning disabilities, parents who do not get involved in the children’s education, inadequate infrastructure, lack of libraries, not fully equipped computer laboratories, lack of sports-fields and under-resourced school halls.

Despite the existence of all the challenges, she is prepared to confront those challenges by assisting learners with disabilities and by also creating good relationships with the parents. She also provides extra classes for those learners and ensure that School-Based Support Team (SBST) gives all the support needed to both the educators and the learners.

She also confronts those challenges by inviting parents to the school. She gives them schedules of meetings where on dire circumstances she visits the learner’s families with the assistance of the School Governing Body (SGB).

In addressing the computer laboratory she has partnered with Clicks Foundation, and they have donated 50 computers to the school. She has a very good rapport with all stakeholders by treating everyone with respect and dignity.

Nyakallo Tefu

As the debate on the reopening of schools continues, lecturers at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business (GSB), have released a free COVID-19 book for children. 

Oaky and the Virus publisher Theart Press has released the book for free distribution and download for to assist in keeping children at home, reading and avoiding infection. 

This week, the Department Of Basic Education announced that the reopening of schools will happen in phases, with matriculants and grade 7’s set to return first on June 1st.

However, this has not been welcomed by some parents, teachers unions and political parties. 

Oaky and the Virus is one of seven books in the series, is written by senior lecturer at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business (GSB), Athol Williams. 

In a statement the university says Oaky and the Virus follows Oaky and his sister, Oaket, as they learn about COVID-19 in a fun, accessible and educational way. 

As soon as the two acorns learn about the virus, they quickly practise the appropriate safety measures: they wear their masks, wash their hands and stay at home.

With the aim of not only educating children, Theart Press is also urging the public to contribute to Read to Rise, which is fundraising for care packs for children in vulnerable communities.

Schools will re-open on the 1^st of June for grade 7 and 12 learners after being closed for more than two months due to the Coronavirus outbreak.

Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga made the announcement on Thursday evening at a joint media briefing alongside the Department of Higher Education, Science and Technology Minister Dr Blade Nzimande.

This is despite concerns on the increasing numbers of infections in big metros such as Tshwane, Johannesburg, Buffalo City, Ethekhwini and the City of Cape Town.

Announcing the department’s recovery plan, Motshekga said each province, district, circuit and school must have a practical and comprehensive catch-up plan to be implemented.

“The past few weeks have affected South Africans in many ways we have never experienced before. This, there has been an increase in anxiety and confusion in relation to the status of schooling, and when learners would be allowed to go back into their schools,” said Motshekga.

She said the department has worked with provinces to prepare for the re-opening of schools.

“Each province, district, circuit and school, must have a practical and comprehensive catch-up plan to be implemented. The plans must talk to the risk profiles of the areas in which schools are located, and this must be based on the infection rate in the specific geographical areas,” she said.

Motshekga said the safety of learners and teachers was imperative and as a result she consulted widely on the matter.

She said class sizes will be limited, social distancing will be required, and so will wearing masks on transport and in school.

No hugging and shaking of hands will be allowed during and after school.

Cloth masks should also be worn by learners and teachers at all times.

“The Council of Education Ministers (CEM) agreed on a number of steps that must be taken to ensure that the health and safety of our learners and teachers are not compromised.  These measures are contained in the Standard Operating Procedures Booklet, which will be used in all schools,” she said.  

She said the department also held high-profile meetings South African Democratic Teacher Union (SADTU), National Professional Teachers of South Africa (NAPTOSA), Suid Afrikaanse Onderwysers Unie (SAOU), National Association of Teacher Union (NATU), and Professional Educators Union (PEU).

The department also met with dozens of other stakeholders such Umalusi, universities and the South African Principal Association (SAPA), Federation of Association of Governing Bodies (FEDSAS) and the National Association of School Governing Bodies (NASGB).

“In all the meetings the principle of opening of schools at the right time was accepted once all the conditions have been met. They proposed that in order to deal with social distancing they requested the department to use community and town halls, platooning and shifting,” said Motshekga.  

“They requested the department to provide Personal Protection Equipment. The department should provide awareness campaign to parents particularly in rural areas. They also proposed that the phased in reopening should also include special schools.”

“We have also received representations from ordinary members of the public, who are concerned about the impact of the COVID-19, insofar as it affects schools.  We appreciate all the proposals; it is really helpful.”

“We are also mindful of the huge size of the sector and the many responsibilities we have in our hands.”

Nyakallo Tefu and Charles Molele

The South African Democratic Teachers Union has accused the Department of Basic Education of engaging in bad faith, insisting that no schools will be re-opened until their demands are met.

This comes hours after the Department of Basic Education’s Director-General Hubert Mweli announced COVID-19 sector plans on the re-opening of schools next week, starting with Grade 12 and Grade 7 learners using a phasing approach.

The Department’s approach to re-open schools is largely informed by rigorous research on the ground, National Coronavirus Command Council COVID-19 protocols and solid comparative studies with other countries, which includes Taiwan, China, Singapore and Denmark.

 SADTU said the Department’s approach was deeply flawed and not backed by scientific data, given the recent spurt in COVID-19 cases in South Africa.

The country has 4 996 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 93 deaths related to the coronavirus. This is an increase of 203 on Monday’s 4 793 confirmed cases.

“We reject importing the Taiwan, China, Denmark and Singapore misrepresentation by the Director General. The context and culture are not the same. We must use our context, culture and data to inform our actions,” it said.

The 220 000-strong teachers union said it stood firm that no schools shall open until its concerns are met.

“We urge the Department to comply with minimum requirements which we articulated in 14 points,” SADTU said in a statement on Wednesday.

“These included among others, the fumigation and disinfection of schools, proper school infrastructure in the form of proper toilet facilities, observance of social distancing inside the classrooms and on court yards, reduction of class sizes, provision of soap, sanitizers an masks, screening of learners, teachers and support personnel, social distancing in the transportation of learners to and from schools, provision of psychosocial services to assist learners as well as teachers to build resilience and calm down fears among learners and teachers.”

Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga has held several high-profile meetings with MECs of Education, heads of department, teacher unions and other interested pressure groups and NGOs in the last few days to discuss the re-opening of schools and the impact of COVID-19 on the 2020 Schools Calendar and Curriculum.

The teachers union said it is now clear that the Department was engaging in bad faith.

“This is undesirable when we are faced with a virulent and contagious pandemic”, said SADTU. 

“If Stage 4 regulations are to be adhered to, there should be no re-opening of schools under Stage 4. The Minister should meet with stakeholders before any announcement is made and after making sure that the Department of Health has expertly assessed the risks.”