Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga at the weekend ignored an ultimatum from the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) to close schools and instead announced a vaccination rollout for half a million teachers.
Just over a week ago EFF leader Julius Malema said: “Schools must close, and they must close with immediate effect because our children are going to die.
“We give the minister seven days to close schools, failure to do so, we’ll have to close schools ourselves as the EFF.”
South Africa is in the throes of a Covid-19 third wave that has seen daily confirmed cases rise beyond 10 000 in recent days.
On Friday eNCA reported that more than 1 000 teachers and nearly 2 000 pupils have tested positive for Covid-19 leading to 20 schools in Gauteng closing.
However, on Saturday Motshekga rejected Malema’s ultimatum, saying schools would remain open.
Instead of closing schools, Motshekga announced that just over half a million teachers and other education staff will get Covid-19 vaccinations in the next two weeks.
“As you may already know, the vaccines have arrived, and are in the process of being distributed to all provinces,” said Motskekga.
“We have five hundred and eighty-two thousand persons to be vaccinated.”
The minister said the vaccination programme will start on Wednesday and will continue until Thursday, 8 July 2021 – a day before schools close at the end of the second school term.
