Mixed reactions to shorter December school holidays

An announcement by the Department of Basic Education that the December school holidays are to be shortened has been met with mixed reactions. According to information released by the department, public schools will close on 12 December for learners and two days later for educators and will open on 7 January for educators and two days later for learners.
For the 2018 summer holidays, learners will have 16 days, excluding public holidays, while educators will only have 12 days. Director-General of the department, Mathanzima Mweli reportedly said the Council of Education Ministers had taken a decision to close schools in the first week of December with effect from next year in order to ensure that the National Senior Certificate examinations marking processes do not negatively impact on learning and teaching time.
Polokwane Observer spoke to several educators in the province who indicated that the decision will inconvenience their December plans and that the department should have consultative meetings with educators across the country before taking such decisions.
When clarifying the decision Department of Basic Education spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga said it was all about the department making adjustments that would help the education system to manage its activities, particularly the marking of National Senior Certificate exam scripts which usually takes place from 2 to 15 December.
“We have found in the process that the same educators who mark the scripts are needed in schools to compile reports for learners, so there has always been a conflict there. We needed to find a way to harmonise all activities and for that to happen we had to create time. To get that time we had to shorten school holidays for this academic year and recover it by opening schools the first week of January,” he explained
He said another change they are bringing about in 2019 in the educational sector is to remove supplementary examinations from the calendar in February and March as they have been happening and instead offer fully fledged examinations which will take place in May and June. Mhlanga further said this would give people an opportunity to upgrade their scores or even rewrite all the subjects unlike supplementary examinations which limited people to only two subjects.
He indicated that supplementary exams were a financial burden to the department: “We have been tracking the process and we have picked up problems there. We found that of the number of people who qualified to sit for the supplementary exams, a smaller number registers and less than half of the registered people sit for the exams and they are not passing in satisfaction numbers which is a loss.”
When asked about mixed reactions from educators, he said when change happens it makes people uncomfortable and might inconvenience them somehow but if you look at the bigger picture it will benefit everyone. He further said the department was doing this in the best interest of the country.

Story: ENDY SENYATSI
>>endy@observer.co.za