YCLSA calls on government to shut down all schools

14 July 2020 

The Young Communist League of South Africa reiterates the call for schools to be shut down and for the Department of Basic Education to postpone the unpopular and unfounded decision for the continuity of the academic calendar even when circumstances do not allow.

Lives cannot be compromised for lack of ideas and incompetence. The decision to resume the academic calendar under the current conditions is merely to substitute the responsibility for the production of ideas by putting the lives of learners, teachers, support staff and parents in danger.  Even during a time where schools are not coping against the novel corona virus, the Department of Basic Education remains occupied with a hope that is scientifically unforeseeable, unless a vaccine is found.

In May 2020, the Political Commission of the Young Communist League pronounced that learners in Grade 12 should be taken to camps and the rest should remain at home. Towards the end of May 2020, the YCL gave the Department an option to prove that indeed the best safety precautions could be installed prior the reopening of schools. Thereafter, we declared our lack of confidence in the precautions that were put in place and continued to pronounce our call to put lives before the ambition to resume the academic calendar.

The current unfortunate reality of the escalating number of Covid-19 cases in schools could have easily been avoided if the Department of Basic Education prioritized the safety of learners and workers before the ambition to resume the academic calendar.

We are calling on the Department of Education to immediately postpone the academic calendar until the best safety precautions that will ensure absolutely no transmission of the virus or until a vaccine is available to confront this virus. In a case where the academic calendar will not be able to resume this year as a result of the suspension of the academic activities, all learners should be progressed to the next academic level besides those in Grade 12. The Department should take it upon itself to ensure that learners and teachers will be able to catch up with the curriculum of the current grades in the following year.  

The Young Communist League of South Africa further calls upon the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC) to prioritize the lives and safety of South Africans before any ambition.

Issued by Dloze Matooane, National Spokesperson, YCSLA, 14 July 2020