TimesLIVE reports that the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of SA (Naptosa) has slammed a decision by the Eastern Cape education department to issue digital tablets only to matric pupils attending the poorest schools in the province.  

In a circular dated 2 May, the department’s superintendent-general Themba Kojana indicated that tablets would only be supplied to quintile 1-3 schools this month.  These are the poorest three quintiles in the five-quintile structure.  Quintile 4 and 5 schools are regarded as the more affluent schools.  But, SIM cards will be given to all grade 12 pupils in quintile 1-5 schools.  Kojana they had launched a Virtual Education Broadcasting Platform “to provide learners remote teaching and learning platforms in an interactive manner”.  Naptosa’s Basil Manuel said the union viewed the department’s move as “absolute discrimination”.  “At a time when we are in a pandemic, to try and discriminate on the grounds of a quintile system, which at any rate is flawed, is ridiculous,” he stated.  Manuel noted that the quintile 4 and the majority of quintile 5 schools in the province were low-fee schools in predominantly former coloured and Indian areas.  “The schools are populated primarily by learners from informal settlements and low sub-economic areas.  To exclude them is harkening back to the worst days of apartheid,” he said.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Prega Govender at TimesLIVE

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