Cosas threaten private schools

Image from Pixabay.

Cosas threaten to shut down private schools in South Africa

Cosas say that if public schools are forced to close due to the ongoing coronavirus crisis, then private schools should not be allowed to operate.

Cosas threaten private schools

Image from Pixabay.

The Congress of South African Students (Cosas) have indicated their intention to shut down private schools in all parts of the country.

Cosas say that if public schools are forced to close due to the ongoing coronavirus crisis, then private schools should not be allowed to operate.

Cosas threaten to shut down private schools

The group have vocally opposed the reopening of schools and have urged the department of basic education to make good on their frequently repeated promise that ‘no child will be left behind’.

President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that government schools would close for four weeks to help combat a surge in infections that government pinned on the reopening of the economy and the restart of the academic year.

Matric students will return after just one week. Still, there is a likelihood that the break could be extended for other grades and the scrapping of the school year remains a possibility even as the government offers assurances to the contrary.

No child left behind

Cosas president Douglas Ngobeni said thousands of children would be left behind if private schools were exempt from government’s closure orders.

“The Congress of South Africans Students will be shutting down private schools in all parts of the country,” Ngobeni said. 

“This comes after President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that only public schools would close. The virus does not care whether your father is a billionaire.”

Ngobeni has not indicated how Cosas intends to shut down private schools, though the assumption is that it would be through organised protest activity.

Last month Cosas shut down the Bloekombos High School in Cape Town, sending 170 matric pupils and the school cooks home, the group also disrupted classes Thandokhulu High School in Mowbray.

Cosas says government’s approach gives private schools an unfair academic advantage. 

“By the way, private schools were continuing with e-learning while we were sitting at home doing nothing,” Cosas spokesperson Buntu Joseph said.

“When it comes to that paper, and now we will be closing for four weeks, and they will be continuing with the curriculum, so we feel that there is inequality,” he said. 

“So as Congress of South African Students, we are saying that we are going to shut down private schools.”

Cosas have opposed the restarting of the academic year in unsafe conditions, forcing the closure of five high schools and eight primary schools in Alexandra, Johannesburg just before the president announced the four-week break.