• West Bank Secondary School closed after a Grade 12 pupil and a staff member tested positive for Covid-19.
• The King William's Town school is in the Buffalo City Metro where 38 of the 480 schools in the district closed in the first week of re-opening.
• The provincial government said this week that 132 schools across the Eastern Cape remained shut due to Covid-19.

Yet another Eastern Cape school has had to shut its doors due to Covid-19 cases.

West Bank Senior Secondary School in King William's Town closed on Tuesday after a staff member and a Grade 12 pupil tested positive.

The closure was announced by the school's deputy principal KL Biko in a letter to parents on Tuesday.

Since the reopening of schools on 8 June, the provincial government was forced to shut 196 schools due to Covid-19.

On Monday, the provincial government said in a statement that 132 of those schools remained shut while 40 re-opened after decontamination.

There was no explanation offered by the government about the remaining 24 schools.

Precautionary measure

Biko said: "After consulting with the Department of Education and the Department of Health, the school will be closed for the next three days, and will be reopening on Monday, 29 June 2020."

He said this arrangement is a precautionary measure to safeguard each of "our school community".

This will allow the school to decontaminate and ensure the observance of Covid-19 protocols, said Biko.

"We want to assure the parents that at West Bank we continue to observe the Covid-19 protocols and encourage parents to inform us…of any suspected or confirmed cases on time," said Biko.

West Bank is one of 480 schools in the Buffalo City Metro district encompassing East London, King William's Town, Bhisho and surrounds.

On 12 June, education department district director Nomvuselelo Fikeni told News24 that 38 schools were closed in the district since 8 June due to Covid-19.

She said 12 were cleared to reopen the following week.

EFF joins calls for schools to close

The Economic Freedom Fighters in the Eastern Cape meanwhile claimed the government was not in control of Covid-19 and therefore should close the schools.

"There is no rush to open schools, life is more important, we need to preserve humanity, we have a duty as a nation to preserve humanity. Schools must be closed," said EFF provincial chairperson Yazini Tetyana.

Tetyana said the EFF was against the plan to reopen schools from the onset.

"We are calling for government to close the schools because they are not ready. We have reports that are saying since the day of the re-opening, 132 schools had to be closed due to the coronavirus, we are not in control of the virus," added Tetyana.

Similar views were also expressed by  the National Professional Teachers' Organisation of SA and the National Association of School Governing Bodies in the call for closure.

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