{"id":535054,"date":"2021-11-05T13:11:45","date_gmt":"2021-11-05T11:11:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=535054"},"modified":"2021-11-05T13:11:45","modified_gmt":"2021-11-05T11:11:45","slug":"south-africas-schools-are-facing-a-huge-lockdown-dropout-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/535054\/south-africas-schools-are-facing-a-huge-lockdown-dropout-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s schools are facing a huge lockdown dropout problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

Researchers at the Department of Basic Education have warned<\/a> <\/strong>of a 30,000 student enrollment deficit in Grades R and Grade 1 due to the Covid-19 lockdown.<\/p>\n

Professor Martin Gustafsson, a senior researcher at the department, says that as many as 50,000 fewer students could be enrolled across the entire education system.<\/p>\n

The department’s research also found that while a number of students have dropped out of the school system, the government had largely succeeded in keeping students in schools despite the Covid-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns.<\/p>\n

There is concern about students who have dropped out of schooling during the compulsory education phase up to age 15. However, Gustafsson said that there had been an increase in the number of Grade 12 enrollments, likely because schools have been more accommodative to struggling students during the lockdown period.<\/p>\n

Gustafsson said that an estimated 20,000 learners have dropped out of the compulsory education phase to the age of 15. “After taking into account things like mortality, learners who should have been at school at the start of 2021 are not there – so there is a dropping out problem.”<\/p>\n

He noted that poor historical attendance data makes it difficult to tell how severe these drop-outs actually are.<\/p>\n

“Regardless, if there are 20,000 compulsory aged students who have fallen out of the schooling system, that is obviously something one needs to be very concerned about. The situation is worst in parts of KwaZulu-Natal and the Northern Cape.”<\/p>\n

South Africa’s schools have been impacted by several lockdowns over the past 18 months. The department estimates that learners in disadvantaged communities lost a year’s worth of learning in 2020 due to a lack of teaching contact time and a rotational learning system.<\/p>\n

Under the current rotational system, high schools operate under one of three systems. Students are expected to attend school physically every second day, every second week or once a day in a morning or afternoon slot.<\/p>\n

During downtime, students are expected to complete assigned work to ensure they don’t fall behind the curriculum. Several schools have also incorporated online and digital learning platforms for students.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: New ID system planned for South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Researchers at the Department of Basic Education have warned of a 30,000 student enrollment deficit in Grades R and Grade 1 as a result of the Covid-19 lockdown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":239537,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-535054","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\/535054","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=535054"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":535082,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535054\/revisions\/535082"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}