I would like to reply to the letter with headline Fire Angie Motshekga in the News dated 31 July.
The writer has expressed his own selfish views here and has not taken note of what the scientists and others have said about closing schools, and he refers to ‘various stakeholders and teachers unions’.I am not minimising Covid-19 and the danger it poses to anyone at all but the writer’s comments need a stern reply.
To start with, the MEC for Education in Gauteng said he did not agree that schools should be closed as children are much safer in schools practising social distancing, sanitizing and learning than they are playing in the streets, browsing the internet, watching TV and grouping together while their parents are at work. Don’t forget more job losses or no pay for this four-week period either!
He continued saying, “You’ve got the right to stay at home if you wish, so there is no need to disrupt schools on the basis that you want schools to be closed, but why deprive other children who want to go to school and carry on learning?” Why are people so selfish and think only of themselves, and deprive other children who want to go to school of getting an education? Perhaps these unions and people calling for schools to close are more educated and trained than our scientists are!
It’s plain common sense that this was a political move by the Unions to the President to surrender and yield to their call. If he didn’t, they would not support the ruling party or vote for them. It is a known fact that the President did not listen or heed the advice given to him by our scientists, who included a certain professor who made the following comments: “… that children should remain in schools, provided proper Covid-19 regulations are adhered to, and I’m not sure right now whether there’s any part of the country that I would recommend that children should not go to school”.
Two other professors said that the government’s decision to close public schools goes against the advice of scientists. One of the professors said the decision was a “miscalculation” and the other professor said scientists believed the best thing for children was to be at school. This was echoed by paediatricians as well.
These are top scientists who serve on the Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC) have expressed their disappointment at this decision and said the decision goes against scientific advice and evidence.
“I think it’s a case of government deciding to take advice from the Unions, rather than from the scientists, and the closure of the schools is going to do more harm than good. Government is more keen to listen to taxi owners and trade union leaders than to the scientist because the scientists have come out uniformly to say that you shouldn’t have 100 per cent occupancy of taxis, you shouldn’t shut the schools, and government is doing exactly the opposite,” the one professor said.
