The December school holidays will now be shortened as opposed to the usual six-week break. Learners will now be on holiday from 12 December 2018 to 9 January 2019 and educators from 14 December 2018 to 7 January 2019. The decision was taken in order to ensure that the end of the year National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations marking process does not impact upon educating and learning time. Tabloid Newspapers took to the streets to find out what the community thinks about the change.
M Govender: It is a good decision. As it is, children are losing out on education. The more that they are at home, the more they are not learning at all. Nowadays children spend most of their time on social media and some of them aim for 30% and 40%, which is bad. This will allow them more time to learn.
Raj Gurcharan: The decision is not right. The school holidays are meant to help the children relax and alleviate stress after a long hard year at school. The learners deserve a break.
Nevilan Moodley: The decision is not a good thing. The learners need their holidays and a break from school as their workload is very hectic.
Lily Maistry: It is not right to shorten the school holidays as the children look forward to having a long holiday. Now many of the children will have to change plans which they may have had.
Darshin Gyanishwar: I am an educator. Reducing the holiday will not achieve anything. Exams will finish on 14 November and there will not be much to do after that. This is not necessary. It does not make sense. Children will not benefit from this.
