Not only has Covid severely affected economies across the globe, it is also ravaging many children’s futures as nearly three quarters of a million pupils in South Africa dropped out of school this year. The National Income Dynamics Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey revealed that the school dropout rate in 2021 had more than tripled from 230 000 pupils pre-pandemic to 750 000, leading to the highest dropout rate in 20 years.
According to experts, even though some of these pupils have resorted to home schooling, many of them have been unable to return to school as a result of psychological and emotional trauma. The Nids-Cram Wave 5 data estimated that in May 2021, the total number of seven to 17-year-olds who had dropped out of school have not attended once during 2021 was between 650 342 and 753 371.spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga said they had consistently called for the full return of schools and they believed that at least 12 million pupils were back in school.
“During lockdown, the numbers seemed to have doubled in 2020, based on anecdotal evidence from home education organisations. This means that the number of home pupils could be as many as 300 000 by now.” and Save the Children have called on government to focus on saving education and protecting the right of every child to an education.
Tragic... The real cost of Covid, the consequences to be with them for a life time....