The department has been monitoring schools in all provinces in an effort to ensure they are ready to reopen. Schools will open on 25 January for teachers and 27 January 2020 for all learners.
Recently, the government announced available positions for 200 000 education assistants and 100 000 general assistants.
"As part of President Cyril Ramaphosa's Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme, the Basic Education Sector aims to create 200 000 employment opportunities for Education Assistants and 100 000 for General School Assistants. This will be accomplished through the Basic Educations Employment Initiative (BEEI)."
More than 65% of applicants who applied for the initiative have been registered for:
- ICT
- Reading
- Mathematics
- Robotics
- Coding and many areas the department was not able to address because of the pandemic.
The initiative seeks to address Covid-19 disruptions by helping schools catch up on teaching time the department has lost this year.
The extended closure of schools led to disruptions, which Minister Motshekga hopes will be addressed through the 3 year curriculum recovery plan.
The recovery plan will focus on exposing learners to skills and values required for learning and progressing to the next grade.
Minister Motshekga said there have been a number of one on one meetings to discuss ways to help schools best cope with the curriculum and Covid-19 in 2021. The main areas of focus for the department are:
- Health & safety
- School admissions
- Provision of learning and support material
- Checking on provinces to see how they’ll handle teaching under the pandemic
- Fast track roll out of Information and communications technology (ICT)
- School nutrition
- Infrastructure programmes
- Learner transport
- Safety and psychosocial services
Now that schools have closed for the holidays, many learners should have received their reports. Minister Motshekga has warned schools against withholding reports for any reason, as this is against the law.
