Schools must remain open - unions

Teacher unions insist that schools should remain open despite the increasing number of Covid infections in recent weeks.

At least 1,077 educators and 1,977 pupils have tested positive for Covid-19 in Gauteng since last week.

According to the Gauteng department of education (GDE),  20 schools have closed because of Covid-19 infections among learners and educators. 

SA Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) national general secretary Mugwena Maluleke said it was not necessary to close all schools and that only schools in hotspots should consider shutting their doors.

“It would be ill-advised for the government to close all schools because there are areas with very low infection rates and it would be disservice to also close them. Schools are not a problem, the communities where the educators and learners come from are the problem because there is no social distancing, people don’t want to wear their masks and there are events and funerals.

He said that the rollout of vaccines for teachers over the age of 40 and for those with comorbidities was expected to start in some provinces on Thursday.

During his address on Tuesday night, President Cyril Ramaphosa said the recent spike of infections had resulted in average of 7,500 people getting infected daily in the previous seven days.

Ramaphosa did not mention the effect on schools.

The department of basic education (DBE) said it was in contact with provinces to establish how many schools were currently closed.

It has been reported that 272 infections were recorded at Eastern Cape schools (123 are teachers, 98 are pupils and 39 are support staff members), Western Cape schools have 462 active infections (314 learners and 148 educators) and seven schools have also closed in Mpumalanga after 18 cases were detected.

To date, more than 58,000 people have died in the country since the beginning of Covid-19.

Elias Malindi, North West education spokesperson, said they no longer close the entire school. “We only close affected classrooms for a short period,” he said.

Last week, Northern Cape recorded 348 positive (52 educators, 20 staff and 276 learners) and closed 11 schools.

The National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of SA (Naptosa) said the country had not reached a stage that would require the closure of schools in Gauteng.

“The numbers are worrying, especially at high schools, but we are not at a point where all schools should be closed. There must be a plan first before closure can be considered and that includes looking at coastal and inland schools because these areas peak at different times. Also, it needs to be established which schools are showing high infection rates because there might be some that still hold competitive sports events,” said Naptosa’s executive director Basil Manuel.

Prof Mosa Moshabela, deputy vice-chancellor of research and innovation at UKZN, said he supported school closures but said this needed to go hand in hand with movement restrictions and the promotion of people to work from home and supervise their children.