Amid growing calls from teacher unions and parents to close schools with immediate effect in the face of escalating Covid-19 infections, the KwaZulu-Natal education department said on Friday that no further grades will be phased in during July.

But teacher unions say this is not enough with at least four North Coast schools were temporarily closed last week.

There is no indication when Grades 3 and 10, which were set to start school on Monday, will return.

A number of schools have also suspended the return of Grade R’s, who were to return with the Grade 6 and 11 pupils on July 6.

Despite attempts to ensure that regulations such as wearing masks, sanitising and social distancing are followed, several teachers and pupils have tested positive.

Last Monday Stanger High School closed for a second time after a pupil tested positive.

Glenhills Secondary closed on June 25 and ML Sultan Secondary, Shakaskraal Primary and KwaDukuza Primary all closed last week following positive Covid-19 cases.

Reddam House Ballito’s principal Catherine Raw had also tested positive for the virus and was self isolating at home.

Raw said the school had followed strict health protocols, so she had not been in contact with many people, allowing the school to remain open.

According to the department of basic education, schools are not required to close, institute restrictions or send home pupils and staff who have been in contact with a suspected Covid-19 case until it is confirmed positive.

Pupils who have been exposed to a confirmed case may not attend school and immediate isolation is mandatory.

While there is no data on how many parents plan on home-schooling their children, North Coast schools report that many parents have opted not to return and are planning to home-school or continue with remote learning for the rest of the academic year.

Private schools have adapted to the “new normal” by providing online learning platforms in place of class-based lessons.

At Crawford North Coast about 60% of students have opted for remote learning with the school.

The school offers Hybrid teaching which is both classroom and remote live learning of International Baccalaureate for Preparatory and IEB at College.

The lessons are live and not online which is the same to an extent as being in the classroom. Lessons are recorded if student has load shedding or miss a class.

Ashton International College marketing manager, Jeannie Habig said about 90% of pupils have returned to school. The remaining 10% of senior college students studying IEB are still enrolled with the school but will continue schooling from home.

“For students who are unable to physically be on Campus for a variety of reasons, we have kept our Hybrid system of teaching on the MS Teams platform in place to ensure that we continue to offer our students the same quality of education so that they stay up to date with the work being completed by the students in the classroom,” said Habig.

Ashton also launched their Virtual College which was set to be launched in August of 2020 with the first students starting class in January 2021.

“Covid-19 forced us to accelerate our plans, so that we were able to offer a larger number of students a quality education while they were unable to attend classic school,” said Habig.

Trinity House Palm Lakes Preparatory principal Garth Jackson said 59% of their pupils returned to school while the other 41% opted to continue classes online.

Jackson said only 5 families de-registered their children to do home schooling.

Curro Mount Richmore marketer Jade Spence-Wilson said Curro Mount Richmore has adapted well to remote learning, offering high quality education both in class or at home.

“About 90% of students have returned to school and with our strict protocols in place we have managed to be incident free since our school reopened,” said Spence-Wilson.

Also read: Curro Mount Richmore wants to bring out the best in your child

However, for schools in township and rural areas – with little to no infrastructure – online learning has been almost impossible.

Thousands of children have been left behind, some sitting at home for close to four months with no learning taking place.

Despite parent worries and a backlash from unions, many children and families in government schools have no choice but to return – children being able to go to school is critical to parents’ jobs and for those reliant on the school feeding scheme.

Sizani Combined Primary School principal, Ntombenhle Francisca said their students, the majority who are poor, did not have access to stable electricity, television, computers and internet and fell behind with the school syllabus during lockdown.

“Online and remote learning was not an option for our students and we will need to play catch-up,” she said.

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