The Covid19 outbreak has managed to expose our government’s ability to accelerate service delivery when needed to and for obvious reasons, to respond speedily or face the consequences of a deadly virus to its people, hence the announcement and implementation of a lockdown.
I hope we are all in agreement that the lockdown is not the end of the virus but the beginning of a global new chapter on how we are to do things moving forward and its implications to how we will understand the new world.
The Covid19 was not aware that it arrived in a country of high levels of unemployment, poverty and inequalities which are accompanied by their own integrated struggles of gender, class and race. In South Africa we have a national blueprint called the National Development Plan (NDP), South Africa’s 2030 vision. It is regarded as a key element in fighting the 3 main problems of South Africa’s past, and it is to make sure that people are provided decent housing , water, and sanitation; electricity, safe and reliable public transport; quality health care and education and skills development; social protection and safety and security, etc.
We have seen that government can even provide shelter to homeless people and deliver water overnight, but we must talk about the post-covid19 realities and the meaning of social distancing into practice in making sure the virus does not locally retransmit.
Credit must be given to the government for the speed of educating people about the virus. I call it, Education on the Go.
However, the post covid19 lockdown will have an impact on the education system and the pedagogical strategies moving forward and we must be ready to embrace them.
I think the Education on the Go must use its time to educate people that there is life after the lockdown, and we must begin to be positive about the future. We must start to think positively about South Africa and always consider winning formulas of the future and think about the next world for future generations.
When we imagine the future, we must do it with education as the apex priority of our government and the only tool for the liberation of mankind in all circumstances.
Indeed, it will be difficult to fully practice social distancing because we are a loving nation that prides itself in religious and cultural practices and sporting events that involves gatherings of people and sharing of physical gestures. Considering that we have overcrowded school classrooms and a shortage of post-school system accommodation in this country, we will have to consider two 2 things for our future memory, and these are:
1. Utilization of under-utilized non-educational building as new education centres
2. The review and integration of the municipal economic development plans and transport systems into the building of an expanded effective and integrated post-school system
With the current classroom set up of 30 to 40 or more learners or students, we will not be able to practice social distance effectively. We will need to break classes into smaller groups of 10 perhaps the introduction of e-learning. We also need the utilization of non-educational buildings such as municipal community halls and churches to cover for the shortage of classroom space where necessary. Then the government will also have to bring into the system the teachers that are on the waiting lists because this will need more hands-on-deck and the retired experienced educators.
When the Cuban People defeated the known enemy in 1959, they had to spark renovations to their education system because of loss of human capital and they introduced the Cuban Literacy Campaign from 1961 April, to 1961 December in abolishing illiteracy in Cuba and particularly in the rural side.
We have recently witnessed that our people struggled, old people, with this new message of social distance, then how much more will it be for kids at primary schools, travelling with “transport” to and from school. Furthermore, these kids have been missing each other and their teachers and it will be difficult for lower Grade teachers to keep a distance from hugging and playing in the playgrounds, it’s going to be very difficult.
Imagine explaining to 5-year-old kids standing a meter away and wearing a mask with gloves. Social distancing will not only be a struggle for kids by the way. It will be a struggle for university and TVET College students who are living on the reality of subletting (squatting to comrades..)
The well-known issue of shortage of student accommodation in the post-school system will have to be addressed through accelerating that all 44 District Municipalities and 8 Metros will need to have post-school institutions as a matter of urgency.
Part of the problem in the post-school system is the movement of people from one city to another looking for a decent institution than that of his or background. This overburdens the cities such as Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, East London, Port Elizabeth which the universities on high demand.
The TVET College sector then gets to further be crippled by lack of hostel infrastructure for the students who do not get accepted in the popular universities that end up enrolling at TVET Colleges. Certainly, the movement of people is a constitutional right but that right under the conditions of covid19 needs to be relocked and thus the importance of local municipalities and the integration of transport system post-schooling is vital. The students will have to stay at their homes, be transported by the integrated public transport and study local economic development aligned programmes.
I think after the mass testing and deployment of personnel on the ground, we would need a second phase of mass education on social distancing and provide counsel on social distancing in the integrated transport systems, schools and all centres of knowledge production. We all should be ready for this if we want our country to win like the victorious people of Cuba.
We owe it to our education system since the government is already providing free education to about 80% of the schooling and studying people so that the future does not perish.
Sive Madala Gumenge is a former SASCO Leader in Western Cape and a Higher Education Activist. He writes in his personal capacity