Johannesburg – The Basic Education department anticipates that it will take about three years to catch up on parts of the curriculum that will not be covered this year due to the impact of Covid-19, according to Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga.
Motshekga said on Tuesday that while the department trimmed the curriculum for internal grades, the work would still be covered in the grades to which pupils progressed.
“We are going to only teach, assess almost 70% of what [internal grades] were supposed to have taken. And in 2021, when the Grade 3s, for instance, start, we will start with Grade 2 work which we had removed from the curriculum,” Motshekga said.
Motshekga was speaking in Lethlabile in the North West, on Tuesday where she visited two high schools to monitor the return of Grade 12 pupils after they were on a week-long break from 27 July until 3 August.
The minister said the truncated curriculum would only see 70% of the syllabus completed by December, adding that the catch-up programme might run for about three years.
“But we are not going to dump the 30% that we have not done. We are going to factor it into 2021. In 2021, again, we don’t think we will finish the work of 2020/2021 in 2021. That’s why I say it’s going to be a three-year programme to see if we can clock back what we have lost.”
Matrics will still be expected to complete their syllabus because their National Senior Certificate examination paper will not be charged.
