School holidays may be scrapped to save the 2020 academic year
The Department of Basic Education is looking at various options
that would help recover the academic time lost during the nationwide lockdown
due to COVID-19.
Department spokesperson, Elijah Mhlanga, says one of the options is to scrap all the school holidays for the rest of the year.
“One of the options we are looking at is doing away with the school holidays and try and go through as much work as we can and that is the only way we can recover the time now.
“Because things are difficult, the lockdown has been extended which means we have to do something else to get the time back,” says Mhlanga.
Mhlanga says the Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga, has met with teachers’ unions and School Governing Body (SGB) organisations this week to discuss ways in which the academic timetable can be salvaged.
He adds unions agreed with the minister that something extraordinary has had to be done to recover the time lost due to the virus.
“The next week we will be making a full announcement in terms of the timelines, but for now we have put together a task team to work through the details and possible implications of the recovery plan,” says Mhlanga.
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