Staff Reporter
No school will be allowed to have more than 50 percent of their normal capacity when schools start re-opening in phases next week, Free State Director General Kopung Ralikontsane has said.
He said this when he gave a provincial brief to Deputy President David Mabuza who is visiting the province to assess its readiness to tackle the spread of the coronavirus under alert Level 3 of the risk-adjusted approach to easing the nationwide lockdown.
“No school shall have more than 50 percent of capacity learners at a given time. Strict adherence to protocols at all times shall be observed,” Ralikontsane told a gathering at the Central University of Technology in Bloemfontein on Friday morning.
A total of 60 682 Grade 7 and 29 841 Grade 12 learners are expected to resume classes Monday in the Free State as part of the country’s phased-in re-opening of schools.
Ralikontsane said strict measures will be to ensure social distancing is observed in order to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
“School furniture has been procured to mitigate the challenges of social distancing,” he said.
“Grade 7 and 12 learners will be accommodated in all schools without a problem . . . a minimum of 20 and a maximum of 35 learners will be accommodated in a classroom,” the director general said.
There have been suggestions that some schools in the Free State as well as other parts of the country may be forced to split classes so that some learners come to school in the morning while others come in the afternoon as class sizes have been reduced to ensure social distancing.
Known as platoon schooling, the system allows two separate sets of teachers and pupils to use the same building, one set in the morning and one in the afternoon.
Ralikontsane also said following the finalisation of the new school timetables on May 25, it was realised there could be a shortage of teachers and there might be need to hire more of them to mitigate the challenge.