"I will not allow my child to go to school": parents' perspectives on school reopening during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on global health, economies, and ways of living, infecting millions globally (WHO 2020). In South Africa, the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed on 5 March 2020 by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD 2020). By August 2020, the number of COVID-19-infected persons had rapidly increased to more than half a million, with more than one out of 1,000 cases resulting in death. In December 2020, South Africa entered the second wave of the pandemic with resurgence in the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths. The highly infectious nature of COVID-19 led to an unprecedented nationwide lockdown in an attempt to "flatten the curve" of the COVID-19 pandemic through social (physical) distancing in South Africa. The lockdown was enacted in terms of the Disaster Management Act No. 57 of 2002 (Carlitz and Makhura 2021) and a number of restrictions on the movements of South Africans were imposed. Lockdowns were implemented according to a five-level risk strategy, with level five being highest risk and level one lowest risk. During levels five to three, restrictions included strict curfews on social movements, closure of schools and non-essential businesses, and a total ban on alcohol sales. Modelling international responses (Bayham and Fenichel 2020; Viner et al. 2020), this included the national closure of all educational institutions, including schools. While South Africans largely supported the nationwide lockdown (Human Sciences Research Council 2020a,b,c), data from the University of Johannesburg (UJ)-Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) COVID-19 Democracy Survey, conducted between 13 April and 11 May 2020, show that 97% of South African parents were somewhat or very concerned that the COVID-19 pandemic would negatively impact their child's education (UJ-HSRC 2020).