Staff Reporter
Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga is this afternoon expected to give an update on preparations for the re-opening of schools.
In a statement, the basic education department said the briefing, to be held in Pretoria, is expected to start at 4pm.
“Minister. . . Motshekga will give an update on the preparations for the re-opening of schools during a media briefing to be held on Tuesday,” read part of the brief statement.
Today’s briefing follows extensive meetings the minister held Monday with the country’s nine education MECs, heads of departments, health experts and the council of education ministers to determine if schools are ready to reopen.
The meetings, according to the basic education department, were aimed at giving the minister an update on the work done by provinces including the delivery of COVID-19 essential equipment and consumables required by schools before they could reopen.
Initially, Motshekga had wanted schools to reopen on June 1 starting with Grades 7 and 12 but unions and some experts opposed this saying most will not be ready as the process required a lot of re-organisation.
Schools are however still expected to reopen in June to ensure the academic year is not lost.
South Africa’s schools have been closed since March when the country went into lockdown as part of measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus which causes COVID-19.
Different options on how schooling should resume have been thrown around with some people suggesting each of the country’s 52 districts should be individually assessed before being allowed to move to another stage of the lockdown.
This, according to the suggestions, could see disease hot-spots in metros like Mangaung, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni, eThekwini, Buffalo City and Nelson Mandela Bay not being able to resume school as they pose a high risk of transmission.
But even, in areas when the COVID-19 prevalence is low, there are fears that children — who to date have not been badly affected by the disease — could act as vectors of the disease by carrying the virus without them being ill and transmitting it to their families.