Schools are opening. Now let’s end the state of disaster
1 February 2022
The DA welcomes the announcement that children will be allowed to go back to school full time. However, we will only withdraw our court action once the new regulations have been officially promulgated.
We note that this announcement comes six months late for primary schools, as the government’s own medical advisory council (MAC) advised in July last year already that it is safe for primary school children to attend school on a full-time basis.
Poor schoolchildren have lost 50-70% of their learning time, much of this unnecessarily.
The regulations necessitating rotational schooling in poor schools have severely impacted curriculum coverage, learner drop-outs, learner pregnancies, learning outcomes, and the wellbeing of both poor school children and their parents. About 90% of all school children have been affected.