Parents, educators have mixed reactions about schools reopening

Since the pre-Easter early school closures, the country went into a level 5 hard lockdown where all businesses closed and people were required to stay at home and only leave to seek medical care or essentials. Then the country moved into out of the harder lockdown regulations and into a lower level 4 lockdown situation where some sectors have gone back to work and now the education department has said they will reopen on June 1 – with Grade 12 and 7’s being the first to start attending school again.

Also Read: How to prep your kids for back-to-school

Here is what parents think about yesterdays announcement:

I'm not sending my children back to school NO,we don't have leaders in South Africa.They will close down the schools when students start getting infected.

— Notorious Mabilane (@notoriousfirst) May 20, 2020

To all those people saying that sending their kids back to school is like "sending them to the gallows". Please look at this table very carefully and add up the number of fatalities under 20 in South Africa (https://t.co/7TIclvAoFJ): pic.twitter.com/TpAPaAmWU4

— Aaron (@LibertarianZA) May 19, 2020

#angiemotshekga opening of schools is not a problem because our kids are moving around the streets of South Africa but when our government is giving our children a chance to go back to school we complain, this freedom of speech we have has South Africans is making us to shout

— B_Xashi (@XashiB) May 19, 2020

You can't make this up :

Certain prisoners will be released due to overcrowding thus avoiding risk of virus infection.
But learners must go back to school and risk their lives in over-crowded and dilapidated public schools…In the name of?

Only in South Africa!

— Son of Saartjie (@thami_kobi) May 18, 2020

Tasneem Maganlal As a deputy principal of a public high school we patiently await our PPE’s.

Chantel Tolmay Lewis That’s sad. How can they send kids to school if NO PPE was delivered yet as per Tasneem Maganlal’s comment!!!!!!

Linea Oosthuizen They want to send children to school but they can’t go out to parks, shops etc.

Rendani Ndou Make no mistake should anything happen to our children and teachers you will be held accountable.

To all those people saying that sending their kids back to school is like “sending them to the gallows”. Please look at this table very carefully and add up the number of fatalities under 20 in South Africa (https://t.co/7TIclvAoFJ): pic.twitter.com/TpAPaAmWU4

Read more

Teacher collapses and passes away on Gauteng school premises

— Aaron (@LibertarianZA) May 19, 2020

I'm convinced as a parent, keep up the good work

— Gentle Tendai (@temurwira) May 19, 2020

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