Winter Holidays Moved up to Curb Spread of Covid19 Says Motshekga

• Public, private and independent schools are expected to close by Friday, 2 July due to the Covid-19 pandemic
• Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga revealed that this will be done in order to curb the spread of coronavirus due to the third wave
• Motshekga stated that schooling is expected to stop by Wednesday, 30 June, while teachers and management can wrap up by Friday

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Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga stated that public and private schools will close on Wednesday, 30 June with the reopening date marked as 19 July. This follows President Cyril Ramaphosa's speech on Sunday.

Over the weekend, the President stated that the country will be moved to Alert Level 4 of the risk-adjusted lockdown from Monday, 28 June. Motshekga briefed the public on the measures being taking to curb the spread of the virus at schools.

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The harsher regulations follow the violent and vicious spread of the third wave coronavirus in the country.

EWN reported that the winter school holidays will be brought forward from next week to 30 June in order to allow children to spend less time in schools and avoid being exposed to the quickly spreading virus.

IOL stated that the above applies to independent schools as well. All schools have to be closed by Friday, 2 July. Motshekga stated that schooling will be closed by Wednesday but teachers and management can close up by Friday.

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Teaching associations previously threatened to close schools if the government did not take action

Previously, Briefly News reported that the Educators Union of South Africa wanted the department of education to shut schools down and if the department didn't act the union would take matters into its own hands.

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This comes after Basic Educations and Training Minister Angie Motshekga's press briefing in which she previously said that schools would remain open according to eNCA. Motshekga said, at the time, that schools would react to the Covid-19 cases using a differentiated risk adjustment strategy.

Equal Education welcomes the decision to keep schools open

Non-profit organisation Equal Education (EE) has congratulated the government on its decision to keep schools open. The organisation said that when children cannot go into school they are being denied access to food, counselling and important social interactions with their friends according to News24.

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Source: Briefly News