All 34 schools on the North Coast that fall under the Billy Nair Circuit will not be opening on Monday.

Schools governing body forum chairperson Ashwin Singh said the decision had been taken at a meeting on Wednesday between school governing bodies, chairpersons and deputy chairpersons of the circuit.

This affects 21 schools in Tongaat and 13 in Verulam.

He said personal protection equipment (PPE) had not been supplied, screeners had not been appointed and no training had been provided to the principals or teachers on Covid-19 procedures.

Singh said classroom spaces were not conducive to social/physical distancing and that teachers could not monitor and implement sanitising and social distancing in and outside the classroom and at the same time be expected to teach.

“The SGB Forum made it very clear that we will not willingly send children into a death trap, especially with no guarantees or assurances that the schools are safe and decontaminated of Covid-19 daily.

“One infected child or one death is one too many for us to take any chances,” said Singh.

“The SGB forum is cognisant that education is of paramount importance for our children, however it places the health and well-being of children, teachers and the greater community of our schools at the forefront.

“We know that there are alternatives to teaching and learning other than the conventional classroom setup, yet the department of education has not explored this at a time where Covid-19 is killing people.

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“The department has failed us dismally and it is incumbent on us as the SGB forum to enforce our mandate from our constituencies, that schools are not a safe environment for children to return.”

Singh stressed that the SGBs were not qualified to interview personnel for the deep cleaning of schools or find suitable cleaners who would perform a daily thorough cleaning of the entire school for a meagre R150 to R300 per day.

“This is the responsibility of the department, renounced to the SGBs and principals, and ultimately parents of the school.”

“We are not prepared as governing bodies to offer condolences to families for the death of any learner or teacher because we failed to protect them while aware of the unpreparedness of our schools in the face of Covid-19.”

Education spokesperson Muzi Mahlambi said they acknowledged the sentiments as pronounced by the SGBs.

“It also our commitment to ensure that all non-negotiables are attended to before we open our schools. To this end, a lot has been done to that regard.

“We urge the parents to guard against infringing the basic rights of children, that is access to education,” Mahlambi.

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