Grades 7, 12 back to school 1 June; 1,577 schools vandalised during lockdown - Motshekga

Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga announced that all schools in the country, including the independent schools in the metropolitan areas will resume from the 1st of June in phases, starting with Grades 7 and 12. Teachers will arrive on the 25th of May and a new school calendar for the year will be gazetted soon. The announcement follows after the ministry received several submissions from parent and teacher organisations and Minister Motshekga said the government looked at how other countries re-opened their schools. She said the Council of Education Ministers of the provinces agreed that all provinces should move at the same pace to ensure that nobody was left behind. The minister also revealed that 1,577 schools have been broken into during the lockdown; it includes 463 schools in Kwazulu-Natal and 366 in Gauteng. - Linda van Tilburg