The department yesterday met with the disgruntled leadership of the Congress of South African Students (Cosas) after a wave of concerns on the spread of Covid-19 following the reopening of schools since the shutdown in March. 

MEC Tate Makgoe and his department met with this student movement to further address the impasse between the two after Cosas allegedly removed pupils from their classes over fears of contracting Covid-19. The departmental spokesperson, Howard Ndaba, tells OFM News that strict measures have been put in place to see to it that the lives of the learners and teachers are safe. Ndaba says school pupils, which include at least 30 000  Grade 12s and 60 000 grade 7s, have been screened and they continue to be monitored in case of any event related to Covid-19. 

Ndaba says school pupils will be tested in case of any Covid-19 symptoms and he has further cautioned that the virus should not be made a school issue. He reiterates that so far over 2 million people have been screened while over 30 000 pupils have been tested.

Ndaba was reacting to a call made by Cosas that all school pupils must be screened and that the Department of Basic Education must go back to the drawing board amidst schools reopening across the country. The meeting between the department and Cosas came after MEC Makgoe expressed that he was not in agreement with the movement over its actions. In his tweet, he said: "We don’t agree with Cosas' approach to disrupting our schools". Makgoe further said it will be impossible to test every learner and teacher across schools.

At least three schools around Bloemfontein reported cases of Covid-19 amidst the reopening of schools which saw thousands of learners returning since the shutdown in March due to the spread of the virus across the country. Grey College, Sentraal Primary and Fauna Primary schools in the city have all reported cases. According to the latest release, the Free State so far has 405 active cases after 235 patients recovered from the virus, with 9 deaths recorded from 649 reported cases. 

OFM News