Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga’s plan to have principals and other members of school management teams (SMTs) back at school on Monday has suffered a serious setback.

This after the Eastern Cape, Northern Cape and an education district in Mpumalanga indicated they were not ready for staff to return, says a TimesLIVE report.

Uncertainty hangs over when Eastern Cape’s SMTs and teachers will resume duty after it emerged that National Treasury redirected the provincial Health Department’s order for personal protective equipment (PPE) back to the provincial department.

Bun Hopley, provincial manager for the Federation of Governing Bodies of SA Schools in the Eastern Cape, confirmed that during an urgent meeting with Eastern Cape Education head of department Themba Kojana yesterday they were informed that Treasury had withdrawn the department’s instruction note relating to the delivery of PPE.

Hopley said that this meant that the ‘the procurement section have had to start from scratch, with the entire process of tenders which has effectively put them back by at least three weeks’.

Hopley said that it was envisaged that the first orders of PPE to be delivered to schools will only take place on 29 May – just days before grade 12 and 7 pupils were expected to return to class.

Principals and other members of school management teams countrywide were expected to return on 11 May while teachers were to resume duty on 18 May.

The situation in Eastern Cape is ‘an absolute crisis’, according to Basil Manuel, executive director of the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of SA.

‘We can understand that it’s not necessarily of the making of the province because Treasury has redirected the order, but what it does is call into question the ability to open any of the education facilities in the Eastern Cape on the dates set by the Minister,’ he is quoted as saying in the TimesLIVE report.

Meanwhile, in a circular issued yesterday, the head of department of the Northern Cape Education Department, G Pharasi, informed SMTs to report for duty on 18 May instead of 11 May.

Teachers, who were scheduled to return on 18 May, were told to report on 25 May.

‘My office has decided that we are presently unable to comply with our obligations for a safe and risk free working environment,’ Pharasi said in the circular.

And members of SMTs in Mpumalanga’s Gert Sibande district were informed by senior officials not to report for duty on 11 May as the ‘schools are not ready’.

The SMTs were told that they will be ‘duly informed’ when to go back to school.

Full TimesLIVE report