This comes after an event at a Cape Town pub which led to 90 cases being recorded. The Basic Education Department has also warned against these types of events. 

"There are two risks to this, the first one is that you could organise a gathering where learners are at a high risk of being infected and when they are infected then it means they will not be able to write the exam for as long as their results indicate that they are positive," said education spokesperson, Elijah Mhlanga.

"The only time they will be allowed to sit in another exam will be in May and June in 2021. The second risk is that the focus will be too much on these parties and move away from the real work, which is the revision."

Pretoria News/IOL recently reported dressing up in a beautiful gown may be a distant dream for matrics who have not only had a disrupted academic year, but have lost out on many of the social highlights of their last year at school.

Professional photographer Yolané Bayards said she loved matric dance season, but due to the lockdown regulations, most of her regular clients in Pretoria had cancelled.

She said some schools had contacted her and still hoped to have a small-scale event, but it was all up in the air.

“Some clients are keen on getting all dolled up and just having their photos taken so some may just have the photoshoot as a memory for themselves,” she said.

Silindile Nkosi, who attends Willowridge High, said she and her friends were disappointed as the matric dance was something they looked forward to.

She had already picked out her dress design and bought some accessories and booked her make-up artist.

She said she hoped the school would still manage to have some kind of farewell event, should things improve with Covid-19.

Lynique Evans, who also goes to Willowridge, saw the dance as a big deal. She said the year had already been tough for them and she was looking forward to ending it in a special way.

Another classmate, Lebogang Moshebi, said she had her date organised during the first few weeks when school started in January.

She said she wanted to make memories with her friends and just dress up, because they rarely got the opportunity to.

“My thoughts are that it hopefully might be possible - maybe with the social distancing enforced and the wearing of masks,” she said, but she and her friends wanted to have something special.

Some schools plan to live-stream their farewells to allow families and pupils in other grades to witness the event.

eNCA