Return-to-school plan is vague and impractical, teacher unions say
Roughly 80% of principals have received no instructions in terms of how to deal with teachers and learners' health and safety.
The Education Minister’s optimism to re-open schools for Gr 7 and Gr 12 learners next week should be questioned.
This is the view of five of the country’s biggest teacher unions in a shared statement last week, in which they highlight the results of a recent study they conducted relating to school readiness.
The survey, they said, showed that 79% of principals in the close to 10 000 public schools that participated in the survey, indicated that they have received no regulations in terms of dealing with health and safety at their schools. The results reflect that of roughly 40% of public schools across the country.
Teacher unions Naptosa, Peu, Natu, Sadtu and the SAOU stated that little had in fact been done to get schools ready to implement precautionary measures to curb the spread of Covid-19. Few schools have also received the masks, sanitiser or water tankers needed.
The Minister, Angie Motshekga, last week announced that all processes to ensure learners and teachers’ safety at schools were well underway, but the unions feel this is “once again one of those cases where there are definite discrepancies” between what government aims for, and what the situation on the ground reflects.
The survey shows that 44% of schools don’t have sufficient access to water, while 39% of schools that need water tankers for this purpose had still not received these. A meagre 5% of schools that conducted the survey, had been sanitised, while 92% indicated that they did not have the necessary cleaning products to do what needed to be done.
“The plan to assure the safety of workers, learners and parents is shrouded by vagueness. The minister cleverly deflected the real facts by stating that the school readiness will progress as we count down to the re-opening of schools,” the statement reads.
To compound the problem, Sadtu Limpopo said in a statement on Saturday, the fact that the function of the deep-cleaning of schools, purchasing of cleaning materials as well as hiring of cleaners was to be done by schools themselves through the reviewing of the Norms and Standards for School Funding policy by instructing School Governing Bodies to use 45% of the total allocated budget for that purpose.
Small schools will struggle in this regard, Sadtu Limpopo said, as budgets have been exhausted. In addition, they said, is that the Education Department will only run relevant payments on 26 May, with the funds reflecting in school accounts on 29 May, two days short of the schools re-opening. There are also reports that some schools have not yet submitted requisite documents to authorise payments and there is a potential for such schools not to receive anything at all and this poses a real risk.
The unions said they would gladly make a positive contribution to the discussion by conducting weekly surveys to assist informed decision making and sharing these results nationally and provincially. Should Personal Protective Equipment not arrive at schools in time, and the required cleaning not take place in time, teachers’ lives were at risk, the unions said.
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