Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic and its implications have been largely studied from a health perspective, however, this research aims to uncover the sociological significance of the pandemic as it has has exacerbated social inequalities within social structures of race, gender and class. During the Lockdown period, the Department of Basic Education proposed the School Recovery Plan in response to the pandemic. This plan was meant to mitigate impacts of the pandemic on teaching and learning, but has ironically also been instrumental in further exposing the depth of inequalities that exist between private and public schooling and even within public schools and the capacity of learners to cope with these changes. This research aimed to gather data on the lived realities of Benoni Public High School learners of learning within this pandemic to gather how the implementation of the School Recovery Plan is shaping learning experiences for learners amidst the COVID-19 to gather how the transition to online learning has impacted learning outcomes and student ability to access subject knowledge. 10 semi structured qualitative Interviews were conducted with Benoni Public High School Learners on WhatsApp voice and video call, Zoom, while one interview was conducted with a phone call, in line with COVID-19 protocols and UJ guidelines.
The theoretical Framework underpinning this study is Marx’s theories of reproduction of class inequality and the legitimation of inequalities which argues that education perpetuates social inequalities as upper-class parents can afford to give their children better quality of education that lower income parents, thereby creating a cycle of inequalities across generation. Furthermore, due to the myth of ‘myth of meritocracy’, children are made to believe that they are all given an equal opportunity as they all are experiencing the same pandemic, however, their socioeconomic demographics are neglected. The findings revealed that learners were not experienced with using technology and devices pre-COVID and in most contexts, teachers also further expressed that they were not well trained or equipped to conduct classes virtually. My study revealed that as a result of this, learners from middle income backgrounds were better equipped for the transition to online learning than those in low-income backgrounds as they had better access to resources to facilitate the learning process. There was a clear digital divide identified across low to middle class schools that influenced the learning and teaching abilities throughout the pandemic and some home environments were not conducive to learning and teaching.