Addressing education crisis after Covid
FOUR years and nearly a month ago, our country, like many others, was plunged into a total shutdown due to Covid-19. On that fateful day of March 26, 2020, we all entered uncharted waters, reminiscent of the Aids pandemic of the early 2000s.
In the ensuing days, the majority of us lived with anxiety, fearing not only for our lives but also how we would feed our children as we lost our jobs or sources of income.
No one in my sphere of influence even mentioned the repercussions this would have on the already ailing education system. In fact, we, as parents, became spectators as the debate raged on about the reopening of schools and how that would take shape.
I deliberately refer to our pre-Covid education as ailing because our educational shortcomings were well-documented before the pandemic. Experts spoke of the impact on our education system with little mention that it was already ailing, and what Covid did was to further exacerbate this.
As parents, we must not be surprised by being rendered spectators because we know that in educational conversations, our contribution is limited to financial matters, and if we are lucky, we are scapegoated whenever academic conversations arise. There is a veil of secrecy surrounding the goings-on in the South African classroom. Any talk about the South African classroom is buried in academic publications, which are largely inaccessible.
The people who first broached the subject of South African classrooms in public are the good folks at Equal Education in their two-part publication, published in 2015, and aptly titled, “Taking Equal Education into the Classroom”. The first part deals with Equal Education’s research: the trajectory of teaching in South Africa from the past to the second decade of the millennium; an audit of the teaching profession; teacher absence in class; and, the debate on whether teaching should be an essential service.
The second part deals with the roundtable contribution from a panel of experts. Topics range from: thoughts on teachers; input on teacher accountability; looking at systemic tests; the allocation of teachers in post-apartheid South Africa; whether the problem lies with teachers or their training; teacher education; and, walking side-by-side with teachers. When I had a chance to read this publication at the beginning of 2023, I found it fascinating and I recommend it to parents individually and parents’ training groups. It gives parents insight into what has been happening in the South African classroom and lays bare how it was found wanting more than a decade ago.
In addition to this brilliant work, we are finding that in pursuit of this meaningless matric pass rate, schools are pushing children more towards maths lit as opposed to other streams of mathematics. As we pick up the pieces two years post-Covid, we find many children who struggle with weak educational foundations, especially in maths, from the early grades. We are finding that these learners’ problems stem from the lower grades of General Education and Training (GET). Unfortunately, children with weak foundations are bound to struggle.
Of course, parents must not think that I am an anti-public schooling zealot. Not at all. I am saying parents cannot rely on public schooling alone. Traditional schooling is very important and necessary for the intellectual and socialisation of our children, but as it falls short, as indicated above, parents need to take steps to cushion it.
There are DIY ways to use as support systems, such as making sure our homes are rich in literature and reading to our children. Use gift-buying times to buy educational gifts. I walk into smart homes that have wi-fi, where children play games online. Parents should ensure that children play games that stimulate them mathematically from an early age.
Parents must look for mentors who are passionate about children’s education, are specialists in their subject content, and are willing to walk the educational journey with their children.