THE Northern Cape Department of Education is experiencing a resurgence of COVID-19 infections in schools, as the province continues to be hit by rising cases.

According to a statement released on Sunday, the department recorded 526 new COVID-19 infections, which includes 54 educators, 439 learners and 33 support staff.

“There was a sharp increase in COVID-19 infections in schools compared to the previous three weeks,” the provincial department said.

In addition, there are currently eight schools that are closed to allow for contact tracing and disinfection of the school premises.

The department said five of these schools are scheduled to reopen on Monday.

“The pandemic is causing major disruptions in the education sector and the department is deeply concerned about the loss of learning and teaching time.”

The department said the district offices have since developed curriculum recovery plans for those schools directly affected by the pandemic.

The department is also running weekend lock-in and Saturday classes to support the Matric Class of 2021.

“This places an increased strain on our educators, learners, and support staff at schools to ensure that the trimmed curriculum is fully covered and learners are well prepared for the end of year examinations.”

The department said it was doing its utmost best to support all educators and learners during these difficult times.

“We are all in this together, working under tremendous pressure and we will succeed if we continue to work together. Our school communities play a pivotal role to support the schools in their respective communities and we urge all to adhere to the COVID-19 regulations at all times. Let us support the Class of 2021,” the department added.

The province recorded 488 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, which pushes the cumulative infections to 76 726. – SAnews.gov.za

AS the country celebrates women delivering incredible achievements in their respective fields in August, this year also marks the year of celebrating Charlotte Maxeke, a black female science graduate who would have been 150 years old.

With that said, it is therefore only befitting that light be shed on where South Africa stands in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields, globally and on the continent.

According to the Florida Department of Education, STEM education is the deliberate combination of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics which offers students a hands-on approach to prepare them for a world which needs more researchers, engineers, computer scientists, and other professionals from the top STEM fields.

South Africa may be appearing to be below the international average accumulating only 30% of women pursuing a career in stem field however the country is still leading in Sub-Saharan Africa.

According to UNESCO, Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for about 28% of women in STEM careers.

Having the highest portion of female graduates in Sub-Saharan Africa at 32%, and even more female ICT graduates, at 38%, according to a recent report.

This has presented an incredible opportunity to share stories of incredible women defying the norm and taking a seat at the table in a male dominated industry.

Ndoni Mcunu (30) grew up in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal and studied Environmental Sciences, Mcunu is a researcher whose main focus is climate change, agriculture, biodiversity. She is currently pursuing a PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) at the Global Change Institute at Witwatersrand University in South Africa, and is also a Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Black Women in Science (BWIS), a non-profit organisation which aims to deliver capacity development interventions targeting young black women scientists and researchers.

When asked what is the most important message she wants to send to young women considering a career in STEM? Her response was simple: “Aim to be the most well-informed professional in the room.

Take time to improve the skills and the knowledge to get you at a professional level. Don’t put too much emphasis on the fact that there is not enough of us, but rather, on what expertise you need to stand out and to stay in.  The glass ceiling can be broken by gaining skills and expert knowledge” said Mcunu.

Named Africa’s youngest brain surgeon at the age of 29 in 2017, Dr Ncumisa Jilata from Umtata in the Eastern Cape, graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine and a Bachelor of Surgery (MBChB), from Umtata’s Walter Sisulu University in 2009.

In 2017 she completed her fellowship with the Council of Neurosurgeons of South Africa and officially earned her title as one of five black South African women in the field – and the youngest neurosurgeon on the continent.

She is an expert in her field, treating everything from brain tumors to the effects of stroke.

She also addresses issues related to the nervous system, including degenerative issues of the spine.

As exciting as it is for her to be in the midst of the few female neurosurgeons, she has put her efforts behind bridging the gap in percentages of men versus women in the field.

Her desire is to have foundation that will assist her to share her services and knowledge about the neuro field with the disadvantaged.

Recognised as one of South Africa’s women breaking barriers, her life story truly embodies persistence, bravery and the importance of education.

 

FEES Must Fall activist Bonginkosi Khanyile has been arrested by the Hawks in connection with the recent civil unrest and pro-Zuma riots in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.

The Hawks did not confirm his identity at the time, but released a statement confirming they arrested a 31-year-old man in Johannesburg.

“It is alleged that the suspect was involved in the incitement of public violence through social media and other platforms during the period of unrest in KwaZulu-Natal. He was arrested at one of the higher learning institutions in Johannesburg and was escorted to KwaZulu-Natal where he was detained,” spokesperson Colonel Katlego Mogale said in a statement on Friday.

Khanyile is due to appear in the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Monday.

The 31-year-old is suspected to have been one of the people who incited public violence during the unrest.

It’s understood that Khanyile was arrested in Johannesburg and transported to KwaZulu-Natal, where he is expected to appear in the Durban Magistrate’s court on Monday.

The former Durban University of Technology student was arrested during the #FeesMustFall protests and charged on eight counts including public violence and inciting violence. 

In January 2019, Khanyile was sentenced to three years under house arrest and a R5,000 fine.

He must also undergo community service every month and refrain from taking intoxicating substances.

The court heard that Khanyile had been accepted to study towards a master’s degree in public management at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. 

Inside Education

EAST London police have arrested a 25-year-old man after the body parts of a 23-year-old woman were found in a suitcase and two black bags.

The victim is believed to be a Fort Hare law student from the University’s East London campus.

These fears were confirmed on Thursday afternoon when Fort Hare issued a statement about her death.

A spokesperson JP Roodt says a delegation from the University will travel with police to inform the next of kin.

The gruesome discovery was made on Thursday morning when a police patrol was alerted by a motorist to the suitcase and a black bag, which were found on the corners of Fleet Street and Fitzpatrick Road.

Provincial police spokesperson, Brigadier Tembinkosi Kinana says that while on the scene, police received information about the suspect who was arrested in Quigney by members of SAPS Crime Intelligence.

Brigadier Kinana says further investigations led to a house where the two had lived for several years, and where another plastic bag containing more body parts was found.

Provincial Police Commissioner, Lieutenant-General Liziwe Ntshinga, has strongly condemned the murder.

The suspect faces a charge of murder and is expected to appear in court on Friday.

The University Fort Hare confirmed that the victim was one of their Law students who resided off-campus in a private residence in East London.

CHILDREN from countries under the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have petitioned their Heads of State and Government, pressing them to urgently remove barriers to the attainment of their aspirations.

Reading the children’s communique during the 41st SADC Ordinary Summit for Heads of State and government, the children’s representative, 16-year-old Victoria Ganamba, challenged that SADC 2050 Vision cannot be realized unless the Heads of State and Government uphold children’s rights.

The children prepared the communique under the banner of Joining Forces, which is an alliance of the six largest child-focused international non-governmental organizations.

The organizations include Save the Children International, Plan International, SOS Children’s Village, Child Fund Alliance, World Vision International and Tere des Homes.

Victoria, who is also the Speaker of Children’s Parliament in Mwanza, further demanded that SADC should find a lasting solution to child trafficking, child abuse and violation of children’s rights including the right to education.

“SADC should put strong measures in place to put to an end these child rights violations. Child trafficking and all forms of child rights violations deny children opportunities for appropriate education and development. SADC should reaffirm its commitment and put in place strong measures towards ending child marriage. Child marriage undermines the contribution of girls to the overall national development and economic growth of their countries and the realisation of the SADC 2050 agenda,” she said.

Victoria further tasked SADC to demonstrate leadership by recognising climate change risks and take appropriate policy responses, stressing that millions of children are living in flood and high drought zones.

She said evidence is abundant to suggest that unless action is taken, such occurrences will continue to increase in the future posing threats to a generation of children, including risks to school disruption.

Victoria called upon SADC, among others, to ensure trees are replaced and to put in place legislation to reduce use of charcoal in order to make the environment clean and safe for the people to use.

“Poisonous chemicals must also be avoided when fishing. Governments must also put laws by showing their political will to ensure there is promotion of cheaper gas and solar products to reduce poisonous gas emissions. SADC should embrace policy that maximised inclusion. Children with disabilities face multiple deprivations and are most disadvantaged. They face increased exposure to abuse and have minimal access to social services, affecting their ability to reach their full potential,” she emphasized. 

The Stella Maris Catholic Secondary School student further asked SADC leadership to envision and take positive steps towards creating a region where all children, boys and girls can hold diverse hopes and dreams for their future and have equal opportunity to make these come true.

She said there is overwhelming evidence that girls drop out of school more than boys as sexual and gender based violence disproportionately affects girls.

She called on governments to put in place strong measures that promote gender equality and to the meet commitment of allocating at least 15% of their national budget towards eradication of imbalances by creating more space for civic education on gender equality in all places.

“SADC should embrace policy that address the plight of child refugees. Child refugees in the region have poor access to education and other social services, are at a greater risk of malnutrition, face greater risks to their safety and well-being,” concluded Victoria.

Save the Children International Senior Technical Advisor on Policy and Advocacy and Government Relations, John Chipeta, said the role of the alliance was to amplify the voices of the children so that their voices are heard.

Chipeta expressed hope that the SADC Heads of State and Government would pay a listening ear to the lamentations of the children in the region.

* Agencies

THE Department of Basic Education (DBE) plans to cancel the October holiday period for schools in South Africa to help make up for lost teaching time.

Basic Education spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga said that the department was holding talks with partners about the planned change on Tuesday morning (17 August). He added that an announcement on any planned changes would be made shortly.

Under the current 2021 school calendar, government school students are on holiday from 1 October until 11 October. Scrapping this holiday would give students an additional week of teaching time from 4-8 October.

All schools reopened on 26 July as part of the country’s move to an adjusted level 3 lockdown after a month-long level 4 lockdown.

While the education department shifted the June holidays to accommodate the closure, students still lost five teaching days over the period, which the October change will now pay up.

This comes after the lockdown caused severe teaching disruptions for much of 2020 and at the start of 2021.

Primary school students in South Africa returned to full-time teaching for more than a year on 2 August for the first time.

Since South Africa first introduced Covid-19 lockdown restrictions at the end of March 2020, most students have been learning in a ‘shift system’ – with a large amount of course work being done at home to encourage social distancing.

Unions opposed

Teachers unions have already opposed the change, saying that the government did not consult them on the new timetable.

The SA Onderwysers Unie (SAOU) said that it has received communication from the DBE that the following changes will take place:

That the five days from 4 to 8 October 2021 must be utilised to compensate for the lost school days;The third and fourth terms will be separated by a long weekend by declaring 23 September 2021 as a school holiday.

“The absolute fixation to insist on the normal 200 school days per annum despite the fact that the world is experiencing an extraordinary period as a result of the Covid pandemic makes no sense whatsoever,” the SAOU said.

The union said that many educators and parents have also incurred financial expenses for the October holidays.

Lost time 

According to data from the latest National Income Dynamics Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey, the impact of disrupted education since the Covid-19 outbreak has been devastating, with learners between 75% and a full school year behind where they should be, according to data from the latest National Income Dynamics Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (NIDS-CRAM).

Rotational attendance, sporadic school closures and days off for specific grades have resulted in school children losing 54% of learning time.

Some 400,000 to 500,000 learners have reportedly also dropped out of school altogether over the past 16 months.

This is most likely for children living in informal urban and rural settings, with household poverty also playing a critical role. The total number of out of school children is now up to 750,000, said UNICEF South Africa.

“The reality is that South Africa cannot afford to lose another learner or another hour of learning time,” said Christine Muhigana, UNICEF South Africa representative. “It is urgent that we get every child back into the classroom, safely, now.”

Being out of school leads to learning loss and mental distress, exposure to violence and abuse, missed school-based meals and reduced development of social skills.

In the longer term, the skills needed to transition into working lives will be affected. Evidence shows that when children are out of school, women are twice as likely to take on childcare responsibilities, affecting their ability to work or search for work.

* Business Tech

GAUTENG schools have become soft targets for organised crime syndicates dealing in information and communication technology (ICT) equipment and scrap metal collectors.

This was revealed on Friday by the provincial Department of Education to a delegation of the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education and the Select Committee on Education, Technology, Sports, Arts and Culture following oversight visits to schools damaged during last month’s public unrest and pro-Zuma riots in the province.

In a statement, the committees heard that “organised crime syndicates have been targeting schools to steal smart boards, computers, printers and other ICT equipment that is used in teaching and learning. Scrap metal collectors also vandalise schools to steal water taps, electrical copper wires, as well as aluminium window and door frames to sell to recyclers.”

Gauteng MEC Panyaza Lesufi told the committees that the province was losing the battle against school vandalism, and that drastic steps needed to be taken.

Lesufi also told the committees that although 11 schools were vandalised during the recent unrests and looting, more schools were attacked long before the unrest.

The Chairperson of the Select Committee on Education, Technology, Sports, Arts and Culture, Elleck Nchabeleng, said that “the aim of the oversight was to evaluate the damage and determine how can Parliament intervene to ensure that the provincial and national government repair the damaged schools and tighten their security.”

Meanwhile, the committees will conclude the oversight today by visiting more affected schools around Soweto.

* Inside Education

THE Eastern Cape government has announced the closure of more than 1 000 dysfunctional schools across the province.

About 1 142 schools across the Eastern Cape province were gazetted for closure as part of the rationalisation, realignment and merge of non-viable schools, following a series of meaningful meeting with parents, unions, school governing bodies and civil society leaders.

The program was meant to ensure the augmentation of the limited state resources, for the benefit of every learner in the province.

MEC for education Fundile Gade said the merging of schools will improve the overall quality of education in the province.

He said the Eastern Cape Department of Education has gazetted the realignment and merger of at least 390 schools in the province.

“Unviable, dysfunctional schools in any system are a nerve because they are part of the dysfunctionality of the entire system but the intention is not to close them,” said Gade.

“The intention is to get a sense of what then becomes a broader view of the communities that are being served and how do you save government unnecessary expenditure out of those institutions that are dysfunctional from that one thousand already about 400 of them are likely to be re-purposed.”

The gazetted schools had less than the prescribed number of learners for either a primary or high school hence the move to merge them for better learner performance and outcomes.

The Norms and Standards prescribes that a minimum number of enrolled primary school learners should be 135, while a secondary school should have at least 200 enrolled learners.

These schools, according to Gade, do not meet any of those regulations and merging or realigning them will guarantee that each learners receives public quality education.

The realignment and merger of schools is prescribed by the South African Schools Act (Act 84 of 1996). Primarily, the program is meant to ensure that learners receive quality public education at all times as prescribed by the Constitution of the land, said the department.

The need to rationalise schools in the Eastern Cape started a few years ago.

The province not only inherited a large number of very small schools from the Transkei era, but out-migration to urban centres both within and outside of the province has also made many schools unviable.

Data from 2016, when the Government Technical Advisory Centre (GTAC) project began, showed that close to 50% of schools had fewer than 250 learners, and another 17% have fewer than 100 learners.

Previous rationalisation efforts in the province were characterised by non-compliance with the provisions of South African Schools Act on the closure of schools, along with fragmented planning that affected teacher placements (from old to new schools) and the provision of scholar transport, resources and infrastructure in receiving schools.

This lack of transport for learners moving to more distant schools created distrust among communities, which fuelled resistance to the rationalisation efforts.

* Inside Education

THE Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi has welcomed the successful first week of online admissions applications after more than 100 000 applications for Grade 8 were completed.

The department’s 2022 online admissions applications system opened last Tuesday for Grade 7 learners currently enrolled in the public school system in Gauteng to apply for Grade 8.

“We are vindicated that the two-phase process was in the best interest of both learners and parents,” Lesufi said.

“There have been three main problems, one being the issue of ID numbers where we are linked to the home affairs database but there were challenges and limitations but we managed to rectify that.”

The process for Grade 1s and 8s was split into two phases this year to ensure that the high demand for school placement was managed more efficiently.

By Friday, the number of successful applications from Grade 8 was at 104 504.

“Accordingly, this milestone is indicative of the hard work that has been put in by the GDE staff who are handling an average of 5 000 calls a day at the GDE contact and walk-in centres across the province. Our gratitude must go to parents and guardians whose patience and understanding have made this process smoother,” education spokesperson Steve Mabona said.

Learners who were outside the public schooling system and eligible for Grade 8 would have to wait until September 13 to apply, as well as eligible Grade 1 learners.

The system began smoothly last week with some parents and guardians having to overcome a number of challenges including incorrect ID numbers or home addresses – even after the parents had verified their details at schools. “Indeed our back-office support – including the districts and schools – has been extremely busy providing assistance to parents and guardians so that they are better able to navigate the system,” Mabona said.

The provincial department has encouraged parents who have not yet verified their information to communicate with their child’s school to check if schools have updated details.

If the schools do not prove to be helpful, parents have been urged to visit the GDE’s district office, walk-in centres or call the GDE’s contact centre.

The first phase of the 2022 online admissions process, which is for parents and guardians whose children are currently in Grade 7 at a public school in Gauteng and would be going to Grade 8 in 2022, will end on September 3.

Phase 2 would begin on September 13 and focus on parents and guardians whose children would be going into Grade 1 in 2022 or Grade 8 but were not in a public school in Gauteng. It would end on October 8.

* Own Correspondent