The South African government has reassured South Africans that children are not going to be in danger of contracting the coronavirus as their immune system is much stronger. They also indicated that research has shown that it is not possible for a positive child to infect an elderly as the virus in kids does not have power to spread to other people surrounding them.
While a few schools reopened on the 1st June 2020, a lot are still closed due to the fact that they are deemed not ready by communities as they do not have proper water and toilets. A lot of schools in rural areas do not have all the necessary things needed for them to help fight the spread of the virus as they do not even have classrooms. Almost all schools in rural areas do not have the qualities of schools in urban areas and that is a big concern as parents are saying it is risky to take their children to those schools especially now in winter.
While the government announced the reopening of liquor stores, the industry managed to deliver their products to all their stores in all nine provinces of South Africa in just three days while the department of education has failed to deliver hand sanitizers and masks to schools in three weeks. This shows that there are a lot of problems in the government services during the pandemic and that is the reason parents are not happy with the conditions of the schools.
South Africans are now asking if the government departments have the correct people working there as they failed to deliver safety materials to all schools in three weeks and they have done nothing when it comes to re-announcing the new reopening dates. Parents are more concerned about the health of their children than completion of the academic year and that is fair enough considering that the country’s public hospitals are in poor condition and no one is doing anything about it.
There are different opinions about the 2020 academic year according to South Africans as some are saying that it should be called off and children should repeat the same class next year while others are saying that children should be automatically promoted to the next grade next year except those who are doing Grade 7 and Grade 12 as they are back in class as we speak.
2020 Is a difficult year to the whole world and the best thing to do is have everyone participating in all the decisions that are there to help save lives while making sure that people have food and other necessities. It does not help for people to use this time to identify opportunities that are not helpful for saving lives.
