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The Western Cape is the only province to have launched a programme to make up for learning time lost during the Covid-19 pandemic.
PHOTO: Duncan Alfreds/News24
- Education expert, Professor Ursula Hoadley, says it is concerning that there are no programmes to recoup teaching and learning time lost during the Covid-19 pandemic.
- She said the Western Cape was the only province that launched a programme to help pupils catch up.
- Hoadley said pupils still fell behind in critical subjects.
The Western Cape is the only province that has launched a programme to recoup teaching and learning time lost during the Covid-19 pandemic.
This is according to University of Cape Town (UCT) Professor Ursula Hoadley, who spoke at the Department of Basic Education's discussion on the Progress in International Reading and Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2021 results.
According to Hoadley, rotational learning and school closures resulted in high learning losses, especially for schools in poor areas that struggled to meet social distancing and other Covid-19 requirements.
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As things stand, the Western Cape is the only province that has launched a programme to recoup teaching and learning time lost during Covid-19, Hoadley said.
She added that many pupils were behind in critical subjects and that the department hadn't attempted to recoup lost time.
Hoadley said the department's strategies were ineffective because most pupils did not have access to the internet, among other resources.
She added:
This shifted the responsibility of addressing learning losses away from DBE (Department of Basic Education) to the extent to which the learners could access social and educational support.
Hoadley said the Western Cape's #backontrack programme added to last year's initiative to recoup lost time: "The programme built on some of the interventions from last year. It is properly funded and includes finding additional time through camps, but at the national level, there is nothing."
The Western Cape said it would invest R1.2 billion toward the project:
- It allocated R118 million in the 2022/23 financial year for a foundation-phase reading programme in three languages, with training and the distribution of decodable readers and anthologies for Grades 1 to 3. It further allocated R288 million to add to this existing support; and
- In the third and fourth terms last year, the Western Cape allocated two extra hours per week for reading within the school day in the foundation phase.
"What the PIRLS results clearly confirm is that the pandemic had effectively wiped out years of gains, putting our youngest learners' futures at serious risk," the provincial government said in a statement.
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