Education pundits in fact agree that the amount of time lost in the previous two years is very difficult to make up for. It is highly unlikely that schools will be able to recover schooling time lost in 2020-2021, Professor Mary Metcalfe insists in her interview with SAFM earlier in the morning.
In the years to come, the effects of the pandemic are expected to be dire, mainly for learners who were approaching their critical phases of their schooling in these years i.e., Grade 1, 7, 10 and 12. In 2020 learners lost 54% of their schooling time and in 2021 they lost 22%. Considering the fragility of our schooling system it is going to be extremely difficult for these learners to achieve the levels required in these grades.
It has been scientifically proven over the years that learners who receive substandard tuition in their early schooling years tend to struggle coping with the demands of the vertical articulation later in their schooling lives.
On one hand, there is no denying that some schools are trying their level best to come up with a variety of strategies to improve learners' schooling experience.
On the contrary, there are schools especially in the necessitous communities that are still struggling to make ends meet. These schools have been struggling prior Covid-19, now their problems have worsened. Provinces like the Eastern Cape, Limpopo, Northern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal need to be prioritized. These provinces have a greater percentage of learners coming from poor backgrounds and mainly rural areas.
It is incumbent upon the government at all levels to do a thorough audit of schools that need more interventions in order to turn around their fortunes.
The debate around adding an hour extra to the schooling time may not be a good idea if first, the situational analysis is not performed, lack of infrastructural support, and poor school governance in these schools.
Making up for the lost time is a very lazy debate I contend, there is more to schooling than just adding time to keep children within the school premises.
One, there are kids who spend a considerable amount of time travelling to school and back every day. The distances they travel are exhausting and that contributes significantly to their state of mind and their inability to absorb content as it is delivered.
Two, in some schools the level of discipline from the teachers themselves is appalling, principals find it difficult to achieve good marks because they spend a considerable amount of time policing the whereabouts of these teachers instead of focusing on managing the schools better.
These ill-disciplined teachers spend most of their time on less important tasks instead of teaching in class. Three, even worse, some schools do not have the proper tools of trade to use in this extra time that is being proposed.
Therefore, adding an extra hour might not help improve learners’ chances of receiving sufficient tuition or making up for the lost time. There are a number of factors that should be taken into consideration before this idea of an extra hour is agreed upon.
At face value one can consider the aforesaid challenges as peripheral but they are very important to ventilate if the long-lasting solution is to be found.
The fourth important aspect to this is the school governance i.e., principal, school management team, and the school governing body.
The decision to add or not to add an extra hour of schooling time by law is the prerogative of the school. Therefore, these three tiers of the school governance are very key in determining credence to this proposal. From a purely schooling point of view, I believe there has to be a clear recovery plan led by the principal.
The plan should look mainly inward, i.e The principal together with the school management team in consultation with SGB (depending on their depth) must critically look at the curriculum and assessment methods that can be used to achieve sufficient competences expected in these grades.
If they get this right, there is no need for an extra amount of time. Instead what is needed is innovative application of these pedagogies. Governance goes a very long way in shaping the direction of the institution.
If schools are governed competently, half of the problems in the schooling system can be solved. If there is poor governance at school level very little could be done to turn around the situation.
There is no dispute on the fact that the pandemic did cripple many things but it is very important that the strategies employed to mitigate the effects are carefully crafted.
The effects of the pandemic are going to last longer if unscrupulous decisions are taken. Granted, adding an hour in the schooling time has pros and cons to it but schools can make a better-informed decision if they truly want to improve learners' schooling experience post Covid-19 .
The ball is in the school governance court, do not attempt to recover lost time rather make use of the time in your hands.
* Khumbulani Mngadi is an independent analyst based at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.