Education activist Hendrick Makaneta salutes Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga for putting learning and teaching first in the midst of the challenge of poor curriculum coverage.
Makaneta said the move will help improve education as we continue to battle the killer pandemic in our midst.
“There is no doubt that teachers are behind with the annual teaching plan due to amongst others the early closure of schools when president Cyril Ramaphosa placed the country on alert level 4. The planned cancelling of the October school holidays will help teachers and learners to focus on the business of completing the curriculum coverage for the third term of 2021.” Makaneta said.
Makaneta believes the Minister should consider extending the December closing date to a later date so that more can be done to help improve the performance of our learners.
“It cannot be correct for teachers to prioritise school holidays when the learners are behind with the curriculum coverage,” said Makaneta.
He said at this difficult time of great uncertainty, we need to all pull together to assist learners to create a better future for themselves, particularly those from township and poor rural communities.
“We know very well that most of the learners from working class background have nowhere else to go in order to improve their capacity to perfom better academically. Public schools are their only hope for a better future hence teachers have to think twice about the holidays. In any case most of these learners from poor background also rely on the school nutrition programme,”
Makaneta added that cancellation of the holidays is in the best interest of all the learners who rely on the feeding scheme.
