Cape Town - Despite Santaco calling off its violence-tainted taxi strike on Thursday, more than half a million learners and over 5000 teachers were absent from school on Friday.
Education MEC David Maynier said the strike wiped out a full week of teaching and learning with 852 000 learners and 17 700 staff members absent at the peak of the strike on Tuesday, August 8, representing 71% of its learners.
WCED has 1.2 million learners and 56 000 school staff comprising both WCED and school governing body-appointed staff.
Maynier said schools in poor communities were those hardest hit.
On Friday, Maynier said 739 569 learners and 5533 teachers were not present on Friday.
The department’s #BackonTrack programmes were also disrupted, with tutoring programmes for over 14 000 cancelled. The programme offers extra lessons to learners on Saturdays in a bid to recover learning losses suffered as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Education activist Hendrick Makaneta said: “The disruption of schooling in the Western Cape has negatively affected both learners and teachers as it brought a complete halt to learning and teaching.
“Even at those schools that could operate, the general mood for learning was severely affected by the great uncertainty as a result of the taxi strike.
“It will not be an easy thing to reduce the impact of strikes on Western Cape learners. The government should find long-term solutions to the crisis presented by strikes, not only in the Western Cape but throughout the country.”
During a Santaco strike on November 21 and 22, 2022, 128 699 learners in Grades 1 to 11 and 2 435 school staff missed school, and 128 747 learners and 1965 school staff missed school the next day.
In a statement released on Thursday, the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) in the Western Cape said: “While we understand the cry for the reversal of the draconian laws against the taxi industry by the City of Cape Town, these must not impact on schooling for the poor working-class learners who still experience the learning losses due to the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Teachers and learners from townships had to bear the brunt of the strike, the union said while criticising some officials for placing pressure on principals to ensure that teachers and “education workers” report to school amid unsafe conditions.