The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) has called for changes to South Africa’s 2023 and 2024 school calendars in an effort to better align provincial systems.
In a statement following its national executive committee meeting on 19 September, Sadtu said that it will be making a formal call for a review of the government’s school calendar policy in an effort to allow future calendars to accommodate for the early closure of schools in the fourth term, in the first week of December.
Sadtu also wants to introduce a single calendar for both inland and coastal clusters.
It is expected that both the 2022 and the 2023 school calendar will see a return to some normality following two years of Covid-19 lockdowns.
In 2022, inland schools will open from 12 January, while coastal schools are set to open from 19 January. The closing date for both is 14 December which equates to 199 actual school days.
Minister Angie Motshekga said that the Department of Basic Education has developed a three-year recovery plan to help make up for the teaching time that was lost during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Motshekga added that the Recovery Annual Teaching Plan accounts for each subject in every grade and is meant to help teachers focus on key concepts, content and skills to be taught per subject over the next three years.
“The curriculum statement for each grade and subject was evaluated by a panel of curriculum content experts, and the content was reduced to ensure that only the core concepts, knowledge and skills are taught for each subject and grade. It is anticipated that over the next three years, learners would have covered the core content in the subject, and the curriculum statement, post the three year period, would be reviewed to take learners forward in their learning process,” she said.
Sources: Affluencer, BusinessTech
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