Children’s interests must come first in decision on schools
14 July 2020
Solidarity today expressed its support for the continuation of the school year despite the coronavirus peak. This comes after the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU) earlier today demanded that the schools be closed again during the peak period.
Solidarity Deputy CEO for Legal Affairs and Research, Werner Human explains: “Every day of postponing the school year only causes further damage to our children’s psychological and educational development. Instead of constantly looking for reasons to stop teaching, we should rather come up with innovative ideas to keep school going as far as possible.”
Solidarity further contends that this matter should be considered at grassroots level and that schools themselves have a better idea of how, and whether they should open, rather than following a one size fits all approach.
“All over the world we already see what fruits a decentralised approach has. Schools have already come up with creative solutions –such as a teacher who video streams a class to a class full of children with a younger person acting as a tutor or supervisor in the classroom. In this way, older teachers are protected but children still get the opportunity to develop their social skills,” Human points out.