Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga says she has not lost touch with the reality poor communities face.
Motshekga, who has been widely criticised for reopening schools during the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, says she grew up in a township and has not abandoned her roots.
“I am a township girl and that is where I grew up. All my siblings are in the townships. All my life, I have lived in the township and I have not lost touch. I continue to function in the community as a deployee. My constituency is in the townships.
I have not lost contact with my parents. On a regular basis, I visit schools in townships. Actually, our main interest is in supporting pupils who are most vulnerable,” Motshekga said.
She was responding to criticism from most quarters that she had lost touch with reality, particularly following her decision to return grades R, 6 and 11 to school last week.
Asked how she sleeps at night, knowing that a child could be infected by Covid-19 while at school, Motshekga said she normally didn’t talk about her personal experiences because that didn’t inform what she did.
“It is really about the mandate from the ruling party; also the directives from the department of health, the World Health Organisation and the advisory committee.
My personal experiences don’t influence the decisions we make, but, rather, the objective realities facing me are the ones that matter the most,” she said.
She said the impact of Covid-19 on the public education sector had been stressful for everybody.
“But we also have to contend with the fact that the advice from world health experts is that we need to live side by side with Covid-19.”
Teacher unions also criticised government’s decision to return grade R, 6 and 11 pupils to school, claiming that they were not consulted and the move perpetuated divisions within the education system, as poor schools were the most affected and there were already schools being closed due to Covid-19 infections.
Motshekga said her department met with the teacher unions at least once a week to deliberate on matters of common interest.
“Repeatedly, I have been saying that the main reason for reopening was to make sure that poor children who don’t have resources such as information and communication technology should benefit in school, which is where they are better serviced.
It is particularly the poor who are at risk if schools don’t open. So those are the principles that have been guiding us,” she said.
Motshekga said the disruptions to reopening schools caused by Covid-19 happened in 2% of public schools nationally.
“We, however, don’t underestimate the disruptions, but we are also consoled that the majority of the schools have remained stable. The fact that some schools have been disrupted is a matter of concern.
However, schools are no different to what other sectors are experiencing – having to close, disinfect and then reopen again. One school is one too many, but we are strengthened by the fact that 98% of the schools have remained stable,” she said.
On allegations that her department was refusing to make public reports submitted during the Council of Education Ministers (CEM) meetings, which were among those used to return these three grades last week, Motshekga said CEM was not a public meeting.
“Anybody who wishes to access documents must use the Promotion of Access to Information Act.”
On reports that some schools in Pretoria last week had to turn pupils away because they were not ready for them, she said her department had made it clear from the start that a school that was not ready in terms of safety requirements should not open.
“We have seen schools remaining closed in almost all provinces where compliance had not been adhered to. It would be wrong if a school was opened if it didn’t meet the requirements for safety,” she said.
The Eastern Cape education department had requested that Grade R pupils not return to school.
Asked if this indicated a difference of viewpoints with the public education sector, Motshekga said that, when her department started planning for the reopening of schools, one of the issues they repeatedly mentioned was the adoption of a differentiated approach based on a risk-adjusted strategy.
“At that time, we even said that the profile of each area would determine the level of preparation for the schools located in the affected areas.
We also need to be alive to the facts on the ground. In the Eastern Cape, community infections are rising and affecting schools in the process; the province needs to plan differently and ensure that safety remains a priority.”
She said that having provincial education departments run their administrations, rather than having a centralised administration, actually helped as it allowed for more ideas and strengthened the system when there were different centres where creativity and innovation took place.
“It makes the big system much more workable than if all decisions, plans and executions were happening at the centre. It was a good decision to have provincial education departments in basic education. It has shortcomings but, on the whole, it works in a system as big as ours.
“Its strength is based on the number of people participating in the running of the system. It has its own dynamics, but the benefits are more than the disadvantages,” Motshekga explained.
Source: https://www.news24.com/
