While teacher unions have welcomed the decision to keep schools open as the vaccination of teachers gets under way next week, education experts have warned that the rotational attendance of pupils is "a disaster that is going to have long-term, significant negative consequences for children".
"If the department doesn't do something, we could potentially have a lost generation on our hands," Stellenbosch University researcher Nic Spaull told the Sunday Times. He added that pupils at 80% of public schools, mostly no-fee ones, were still only attending class every second or third day.
While rotational classes at primary schools will end from July 26, when all pupils return, most high school pupils will continue to attend class on alternate days.
Basic education minister Angie Motshekga announced yesterday that the more than 582,000 education-sector workers, including teachers at public and private schools, will be able to receive their vaccinations from Wednesday to July 8.
The 260,000-strong South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) has welcomed the move, saying it will "prevent a generational catastrophe".
But Spaull said this was not enough. According to projections, the average grade 3 child in June 2021 "knows about the same as the average grade 2 child of 2019", he said.
"For the full half of this year we have seen the learning losses continue because of rotational timetabling," he said.
"Some time ago [between 1998 and 2010] we referred to kids as OBE [outcomes-based education] kids because of the curriculum that was taught. Now I suspect we are going to have Covid kids."
The OBE curriculum was hugely unpopular and heavily criticised.
"They [Covid kids] would have gone through schooling but would not be able to do the same things that the previous kids were able to do because they lost so much schooling," Spaull said.
He believes that all primary school pupils, who are due back on July 26, should return to class immediately. "The department needs to have credible plans for catch-up. At the moment, they don't."
Professor Jonathan Jansen, distinguished professor in the faculty of education at Stellenbosch University, said: "We will pay the price for this [accumulated learning losses for months from 2020 into 2021] for years to come - there's doubt about it."
"It [rotational timetabling] does mean that, obviously for poorer schools, the kids lose out on significant amounts of learning."
Rotational timetabling does mean that, obviously for poorer schools, the kids lose out on significant amounts of learning
— Professor Jonathan Jansen
Professor Martin Gustafsson, an adviser to the department of basic education, told parliament on June 1 that there was a 54% reduction in schooling offered last year, including 27% due to rotational attendance.
He said the main concern was that there were very poor reading gains among grade 3 and 4 pupils between 2019 and 2020.
"These losses could reflect in weaker matric results nine or 10 years from now, and that's what we want to minimise as far as possible.
"These damages are already done so we cannot undo this easily or quickly."
Rufus Poliah, the chief director for national assessment and public exams, told parliament that because of the rotational timetable and the absence of uniformity across schools, teachers would now have to keep an accurate record of the work covered at the end of every grade.
"There would have to be a handover from one grade teacher to another grade teacher so that we have a clear indication of what has been covered in terms of the core concepts, skills and knowledge when learners move to the next grade," Poliah said.
He said their curriculum recovery plan was initially targeting a three-year period starting this year until 2023 and that they would then look at the progress made in recovering learning losses.
At yesterday's media briefing, Motshekga said the education sector was of the view that schools must remain open but that they will take guidance from the ministerial advisory committee, the National Coronavirus Command Council and the cabinet.
Commenting on the vaccination rollout, Sadtu general secretary Mugwena Maluleke said that if teachers were vaccinated it would give them "that kind of comfort to say I am safe, so even if I receive more learners through less rotational timetabling, I am able to do it".
On rotational attendance, he said that social distancing was imposed by the pandemic. "While it's not the best, it was putting the lives and the safety of the learners and teachers first. It's no use for you to have corpses in education because you can't teach corpses and corpses can't teach."
We continue to handle Covid cases according to the differentiated strategy, on a province-by-province, school-by-school basis
— Basic education minister Angie Motshekga
Ben Machipi, general secretary of the Professional Educators Union, said they also did not support the closing of schools.
"But we are saying let's up the game in terms of the non-pharmaceutical measures. Where there are positive cases at a school, let the school be closed."
Motshekga said yesterday that "we need to do all that we can to prevent a potential academic disaster".
She added: "We continue to handle Covid cases according to the differentiated strategy, on a province-by-province, school-by-school basis.
"While there are disruptions in the sector, the majority of our schools remain fairly stable."
She said that if there is an outbreak, the school must handle it.
"It [closing schools] cannot be nationalised for any other reason."
At least 300,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine have arrived in the country for teachers, with 280,000 additional doses to be made available.
While teachers have to make their own travel arrangements to vaccination sites, the education department has been offered 100,000 free rides by Uber in the metros.
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