{"id":507910,"date":"2021-07-22T07:53:09","date_gmt":"2021-07-22T05:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=507910"},"modified":"2021-07-22T07:53:09","modified_gmt":"2021-07-22T05:53:09","slug":"government-moves-ahead-with-plans-to-reopen-schools-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/507910\/government-moves-ahead-with-plans-to-reopen-schools-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Government moves ahead with plans to reopen schools in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Department of Basic Education is proceeding with plans to reopen schools, says acting minister in the presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni.<\/p>\n

Ntshavheni said that Basic Education minister Angie Motshekga will brief the nation on the re-opening of the education sector on Sunday (25 July)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

South Africa moved to an adjusted level 4 lockdown at the end of June in response to the third wave of Covid-19 infections.<\/p>\n

Although initially announced to be for two weeks, the lockdown was extended on 11 July for an additional 14 days, with a review now expected on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The move to level 4 lockdown led to the closure of all schools, with school holidays brought forward and lost teaching time expected to be made up during the typical winter holiday period.<\/p>\n

The Department of Basic Education previously gazetted<\/a><\/strong> Monday (26 July) as the official reopening date for schools, but this could still change if president Cyril Ramaphosa and his cabinet extend the level 4 lockdown.<\/p>\n

The situation is being reviewed weekly, the Department of Basic Education said.<\/p>\n

While all government school students are expected to return in some capacity from 26 July, a timetable change will also see primary school learners (Grades R \u2013 7) return to school from 2 August for the first time in more than a year.<\/p>\n

Since South Africa first introduced Covid-19 lockdown restrictions at the end of March 2020, most students are learning in a \u2018shift system\u2019 \u2013 with a large amount of coursework still expected to be done at home to encourage social distancing.<\/p>\n

In a briefing on Wednesday evening, Ntshavheni said that 143 schools had been vandalised and looted during the recent unrest. 139 of these schools are in KwaZulu-Natal and four are in Gauteng.<\/p>\n

“Equipment and food meant for the school nutrition programme was stolen, which means that these schools are unable to provide the school nutrition programme to the vulnerable learners,” she said.<\/p>\n

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Read:\u00a0Ramaphosa met with more than 90 CEOs and business leaders this week \u2013 this is what he told them<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Department of Basic Education is proceeding with plans to reopen schools, says acting minister in the presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":403493,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-507910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507910"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":507934,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507910\/revisions\/507934"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}