Cape Town - The ANC in the province has described the education department’s move to reduce the teaching time for life orientation subjects in the Intermediate Phase, as “reckless”.
However, education MEC David Maynier said they were still in discussions on Monday and a final decision had not yet been made on the matter.
This was after ANC spokesperson on education Khalid Sayed criticised the decision, saying it had been taken against the sound advice of senior management and did not fall in line with national government’s guidelines.
“While we appreciate the challenges of maths and science in the province and the need for more interventions to improve the pass rate and the uptake of these subjects, we are of the view that this should not happen at the expense of natural sciences and technology, social sciences, and life skills’ subjects.
“These are clear guidelines from the national government which are binding to all provinces. The MEC’s decision is against the national policy pertaining to the programme and promotion requirements of the national curriculum statement Grades R to 12, which gives clear time allocation for all subjects per week,” Sayed said.
Instructional time for the intermediate phase is 27.5 hours and of that home language is allocated six hours; first additional language gets five hours; maths is allocated six hours; while natural sciences and technology get 3.5 hours; and social sciences and life skills get three and four hours, respectively,” he said.
Sayed cautioned Maynier against what he described as “bringing narrow party politics of federalism into the education system in the province”.
Maynier dismissed Sayed’s claims, saying at the start of the second term they announced that Foundation Phase learners would spend more time on reading and maths each week, a move he says was welcomed by their schools.
“We are now looking at ways to reverse learning losses in the Intermediate Phase and the Senior Phase.
Officials and teachers are discussing options for ensuring that our learners spend enough time on maths and reading.
“We are still in discussions and a final decision has not yet been made, but we must do everything we possibly can to ensure that our children’s futures are not compromised by the learning losses caused by the pandemic,” the MEC said.
Cape Times