By POELO KETA A coalition of intrepid volunteers, spearheaded by the Rhodes University Canoe Club, waded into the heavy litter on Cobden Street recently. After being approached by the Canoe Club, Lisa Gaybba from the Makana Revive office organized a skip with the assistance of Marius Lombard from SKIPGO. Refuse bags and gloves were provided by Forever Pure Water. The caring canoeists, who also tackled the Fingo area last year, are determined to make the clean-ups a more regular occurrence. Club chairman, Chris Matthews said he hoped to organise monthly clean-ups at different areas. “Then anyone in the community can…
Author: Rod Amner
The Eastern Cape education department plans to shell out R538m to an Iqbal Survé subsidiary to lease tablets for 55 000 Grade 12s. That’s R9 781 per learner. Meanwhile, a small group of Rhodes University staff and students are downloading a wealth of free digital learning resources and hand-delivering them to parents and children in their homes. The cost is under R100 per child. Three journalism students, Tristan Cooke, Dylan Coetzee, and Pfunzo Ralinana, report on their lockdown service-learning project. Our cargo is tiny; a micro SD card only 15mm x 11mm x 1mm, about the size of a fingernail.…
By NASI HAKO Committed staff at Makhanda’s independent and fee-paying public schools have gone to extraordinary lengths to prepare their schools for the return of learners from this week. The schools surveyed by Grocott’s last week reported that the necessary protocols and equipment were in place for the safe return of learners, following months of online learning and weeks of intensive planning. In stark contrast, no personal protective equipment (cloth masks) for learners were available at four public schools on Monday 1 June when a delegation led by Makana Mayor Mzukisi Mpahlwa visited them. “No PPE for support staff and learners…
By JESSICA FELTMAN Anxiety is growing over the readiness of Eastern Cape for the reopening of schools Monday 8 June. Speaking on a Thursday webinar titled Back to School: Can the school year be saved? education commentator Prof Jonathan Jansen said the overloaded CAPS curriculum and loss of time means that the 2020 academic year “cannot be salvaged”. He said it would be wiser to end formal schooling for 2020 and have a more relaxed approach to teaching while focusing on a creating a hybrid-curriculum for 2021. This was “a more promising alternative due to the chaotic, mismanagement of the reopening…
By JESSICA FELTMAN and LAURA DU TOIT With schools closed for over two months, parents in poorer Eastern Cape households have been forced to juggle their duties as breadwinners with the new challenge of teaching their children. Many have done this with limited access to literacy materials and data, exacerbating the already-huge chasms in the schooling system. A number of local literacy organisations have partnered with parents to support productive and creative learning spaces for their children under lockdown. They have distributed resources to the doorsteps of hundreds of homes, built WhatsApp networks and facilitated access to zero-rated websites. Anna…
By POELO KETA The South African state does not have the funds to adequately cushion the working class during the Covid-19 crisis, according to Professor Lucien van der Walt, director of the Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit at Rhodes University. Van der Walt was interrogating the Government’s Covid-19 social security measures at a well-attended online conversation hosted by the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) on Wednesday. While the state’s social welfare grants and social insurance measures were intended to cushion the working class, “the state cannot and will not provide welfare on a scale that can emancipate us”,…
By USISIPHO BATYI, LINDANI DONYELI and ROD AMNER With most learners are set to return to classrooms as late as August, WhatsApp groups and online lessons will continue to be a lifeline for thousands of Makhanda learners under the COVID-19 lockdown. But, with little or no online access, children from poorly resourced schools have already spent two months with no school at all. This week marks the second month that schools across the country have been closed. While several schools have stepped up with online lessons and resources, the sudden national lockdown and its subsequent extension left many of Makhanda’s…
By NASI HAKO, USISIPHO BATYI, and ROD AMNER Makhanda’s schools are in very different states of readiness for the return of Grade 7 and 12 learners on June 1, while anxious principals express deep concern for the safety of teachers and learners. Gadra Education manager, Ashley Westaway, has lauded the “political bravery” of Basic Education Minister Angie Motshega for “staring down the unions” in her back-to-school announcement on Tuesday night. Though Motshekga outlined measures to be put in place to ensure a safe environment, some local principals said they were in the dark about what needed to be done on…
By JESSICA FELDTMAN The COVID-19 lockdown has paralysed learning in many schools – in part because the majority of South Africa’s teachers lack digital know-how, experience, and resources. However, shortly after schools shut down, two concerned educators, Shaakira Mia and Janine Brown, stepped into the breach by creating a WhatsApp group for online teacher support and collaboration. Within an hour, the group had reached maximum capacity. So, they created more groups. By early May the WhatsApp groups had mushroomed so rapidly, Mia decided to switch ‘The Great Collaboration’ to a different networking app called Telegram. Now, about 5500 diligent South…
1. Makhanda Circle of Unity Food Group A diverse group of about 20 Makhanda residents has been working very hard to identify the most vulnerable, to source foods as cheaply as possible and to distribute food parcels. It is headed by Helen Alfers, backed up by Nicci Hayes and Richard Gaybba from the Makhanda Circle of Unity collective. The aim is to provide food parcels to 1000 household for at least the next 4 weeks. Each food parcel costs about R175 to feed a family per week. This will cost R700 000 for a month. They are collaborating with other…