In January, Western Cape Minister of Education Debbie Schäfer called for the scrapping of the 1 m social-distance rule in schools, which has required continuous rotation of learners at schools across the province and the country.
In a statement, Schäfer said there was overwhelming support for the call for full-time attendance from all sectors, as there was strong and mounting evidence emerging that the learning losses suffered by the province’s learners were having long-term negative consequences, which were outweighing the risks of Covid-19 in schools.
“We are now able to provide even further evidence of this,” she said. “While our schools have thankfully returned to full-time attendance, the 2021 Systemic Tests, conducted in the Western Cape in October 2021, provide the clearest, internationally benchmarked and independent analysis of learning losses suffered by the learners in our province.
“While we are the only province to conduct such tests, it is an indication of what the effects of this pandemic are on learners across South Africa.”
Schäfer said the results are dire, and 2021 results are compared to tests conducted in 2019, as testing could not take place in 2020. “While we had previously made great progress with a steady increase in performance in the years preceding 2020, these gains have unfortunately been reversed as a result of the pandemic.”
This test data has enabled us to begin developing appropriate remedial programmes to address these losses.
“Overall, learners have fallen up to 70% of a school year behind previous cohorts in Language, and up to 106% of a year behind in Mathematics.
“The greatest learning losses can be seen in the Foundation Phase. We have always maintained that the loss of contact (face-to-face) teaching time would affect our youngest learners the most as they do not have the same self-discipline, maturity or structure that our older learners would have to cope with rotating timetables and learning at home.”
The WCED is studying these results and accompanying diagnostics with a focus on updating its learning recovery plans to address these losses.
Schäfer adds that the most important way to claw back these losses is to ensure that every child is at school every day, that teaching and learning time is maximised and that every effort is made to promote a learning culture beyond the school.
“It is now more critical than ever that no person or organisation disrupts schooling,” she said. “In addition to violating children’s constitutional rights, disruptions will only exacerbate the existing losses and put their futures in greater jeopardy.
“I appeal to all the residents of the Western Cape not to let their personal, political, or commercial interests override our learners’ education. We all need to work together to recover from this pandemic.”
