Primary schools return amid destruction

• KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng schools damaged and looted

As primary schools reopen fulltime on Monday for the first time since March 2020, education authorities are counting the costs of this month’s unrest, with 129 schools in KwaZulu-Natal damaged in the looting spree. Gauteng has reported 43 schools vandalised since the start of 2021. Minister of basic education Angie Motshekga said on Saturday that provincial departments had provided mobile classrooms to schools where they were lost entirely. Water was being provided by water tankers and new face masks supplied.

As primary schools reopen fulltime on Monday for the first time since March 2020, education authorities are counting the costs of this month’s unrest, with 129 schools in KwaZulu-Natal damaged in the looting spree.

Of the 129 schools, three lost entire classrooms due to fire. Gauteng has also reported 43 schools vandalised since the start of 2021.

Minister of basic education Angie Motshekga on Saturday confirmed that all schools would be reopening and that provincial departments had already provided mobile classrooms to schools where they were lost entirely. Water was also being provided by water tankers and new face masks supplied. However, many schools were already chronically short of furniture before the looting, with insufficient funds in provinces to address this.

Briefing the media, the minister said “a generational catastrophe is unfolding in front of our eyes daily. Something has to be done and still needs to be done to arrest the academic losses.”

The unrest has made the learning environment even more difficult with infrastructure damaged and equipment stolen. The department says the physical damage includes burning of classrooms and administration buildings; damage to windows, doors, school fencing and furniture; and the cutting of electrical cables. Stolen equipment includes electronic equipment; kitchen equipment such as microwaves, fridges and stoves; school nutrition programme equipment; furniture, especially chairs; water tanks; and building materials.

“This is unprecedented, and we are concerned as a sector that much-needed school infrastructure was damaged. This is a serious setback, as the sector is already under pressure to provide appropriate facilities. The province has made arrangements to ensure that all these schools do open on Monday, July 26 2021, and that teaching and learning continues,” she said.

Covid-19 has had a devastating effect on schooling with learning losses projected by researchers of between 70% and 100% among children in the foundation phase in schools in poorer areas. This means a grade 3 child in 2020 has the same learning outcomes as a grade 2 child in 2019. Schools were closed between March and June 2020 and reopened on a rotational basis where pupils, with the exception of those in matric, attended only one or two days a week to enable social distancing in classrooms.

The pandemic has also resulted in larger numbers of older children than usual dropping out of school entirely. While a high number of schoolchildren drop out before completing grade 12 in a normal year about 230,000 the National Income Dynamics Study Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (Nids-Cram) found that 650,000-750,000 seven- to 17year-olds were not in school, which is three times the normal dropout rate.

No date has yet been set for the return of high school pupils to daily lessons.