Cape Town - The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) said while the South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) held its two-day taxi strike, over 128 000 school pupils missed school.
The department said on Monday, 128 699 pupils from Grades 1 to 11 missed school, and on Tuesday, 128 747 missed school.
This means 11% of school pupils in Grades 1 to 11 were not in attendance at Western Cape schools.
School staff were also affected, as 2 435 employees missed work on Monday and 1 965 on Tuesday.
Western Cape MEC of education, David Maynier, said many schools had to reschedule exams, disrupting end-of-year revision, marking and administrative processes.
“While the Santaco taxi strike had a severe impact on the other grades, we have received no reports of a candidate missing a matric exam on either Monday or Tuesday.
“Two major exams were written: 32 490 candidates were registered for life sciences paper 2 on Monday, and 27 055 were registered for geography paper 2 on Tuesday,” Maynier said.
On Monday, 354 life science pupils were affected by the strike, of which 297 wrote at alternative exam centres, and 57 arrived late at their designated exam centres but were afforded the full-time allocation for their exams
On Tuesday, 415 geography pupils were affected by the strike, of which 358 wrote at alternative exam centres, and 57 arrived late at their designated exam centres, but were afforded the full-time allocation for their exam.
“The fact that the exams went ahead as planned is a testament to the preparations our schools and districts have made to ensure that our candidates could get to their exams safely.
“I want to especially thank our principals and teachers for the way in which they took charge in developing and executing contingency plans for their pupils to reach their exams with great success.
“While we respect the right to strike, other options should have been explored that would not have had such a disruptive impact on our pupils. The best interests of the children of the Western Cape should always come first,” Maynier added.
robin.francke@inl.co.za
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