Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 2013-08-22

The Basic Education Department says it doesn't expect any opposition to its plans to lengthen the school day. School days are set to be lengthened, by up to an hour each day, to accommodate the teaching of a third – African – language to every pupil.

The department has confirmed that schools will be expected to run for an hour longer every day from 2015, with a pilot programme planned for next year.

Departmental Deputy Director General Matanzima Mweli says no one has complained about the several voluntary pilot projects which have already commenced.

He says there are a number of them in Limpopo, including Capricorn High School and a number of them in Gauteng, and the parents welcomed the additional hour for teaching and learning.

Speaking to Moulana Sulaiman Ravat, Penyaza Lesufi the spokesperson for the department of education said that South African’s live in a society where cultures are mixing almost on a daily basis.

“As South African’s we are in better positions to understand each other’s language and culture. Rather than when I greet you in another language I must have an interpreter to interpret for you as if you are not South African. I think it was clear during the World Cup (2010)” said Lesufi.  

Lesufi said South African’s feel that they need to understand each other, know each other…”So it’s very important that at least you know one African language so that we can interact with them and that’s the reason why we believe…me and you our time is over but the young ones, they are the ones that are going to inherit our country and that’s the reason we are introducing an African language in all our schools,” he said.

However the issue that remains is that if the school day is going to be lengthened, it will have an impact on religious classes in the afternoon, tuition and those attending sports activities. Within the Muslim community this extra hour also affects the attendance of Makthab.

Lesufi emphasizes that the proposal for the lengthening of the school day will be piloted and gazetted. Once that is initiated, there will be public hearings and South African’s will be able to comment or voice their objections which will determine if the program will be made in to law.

Basil Manuel, president of the National Professional Teachers Organisation of SA, said the addition of time to the school day was a “thorny issue”. “That concerns me. This is a major increase. It sounds negligible but it does lengthen the day considerably.”

He said this would not affect teachers as they were already required to be at school for seven hours each day, but it would lengthen contact time with pupils.
Manuel said he was unhappy that the policy considered the use of multigrade teaching.

SA Democratic Teachers Union general secretary Mugwena Maluleke had said he was in favour of the policy, but was concerned about shortages of primary school African language teachers

The instructional time for grades R to 2 would be extended by two hours a week while grade 3 would be extended by three hours. The school day for grads 4 to 12 would be increased by an hour a day.