Covid-19 curriculum response: focus on our early grade learners
Prioritise mathematics and languages and suspend most or all other subjects in Grades 1 to 4 for the remainder of the year
Schools have been closed now since March 18 and so far 32 days of school have been missed. By the time learners in the early grades return to school, the proposed phasing in approach indicates that 82 days of schooling will be lost for Grade 3 and 92 days for Grades 1 and 2. For the majority of these learners educational activity has completely stopped. Despite good intentions, the department of basic education’s curriculum response has been extremely limited.
Efforts at providing television and radio offerings have been piecemeal, uncoordinated, poorly publicised and, for the lower grades especially, unconnected to the curriculum. Provincial education departments have focused on online solutions which are inaccessible to most learners. The 2018 General Household Survey shows that 80% of homes have no computer and 90% have no internet. ..
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