Abstract
COVID-19 closed schools across South Africa in 2020 and 2021. Primary schools were closed between 18 March 2020 and 24 August 2020. During the closure, schools had to adopt emergency remote education (ERE). To date, most of the emerging body of literature on ERE has focused on its effects on learners. This dissertation instead examined the experiences of ERE of working mothers of children at fee-paying and model-C government primary schools. Using a qualitative approach through online semi-structured interviews, this research examined the experiences of nine working mothers, five from no-fee schools and four from model-C schools in Gauteng, South Africa. The dissertation makes three findings. The first is that there were differences in the responses of no-fee and model-C schools to the closure of schools and ERE. No-fee schools did not play any active role in terms of providing teaching and learning materials during school closures in comparison to former model-C schools. They relied on materials from the national and provincial Departments of Education, whereas former model-C schools actively sought and found teaching materials beyond these for parents. In the absence of active responses from no-fee schools, mothers independently sought out materials to help their children learn, exercising their own agency. The second finding, related to the first, is that the type of school in which children were enrolled influenced the mothers’ experiences of school closures and ERE. Mothers from no-fee schools had negative experiences compared to mothers from former model-C schools because the former had more frustrations with lack of communication and resources. In addition, their experiences were shaped by differential access to resources, which was also reflected in their ability to afford or not afford a fee-paying school. Lastly, the research reveals that the experiences of working mothers were related to the type of family structure they had. Mothers who headed their households found it most difficult to combine and balance paid work with ERE. By contrast, mothers from conjugal and extended families were able to combine and balance paid work with ERE because of the support they received from their families. The study reveals that the transition to ERE was difficult and challenging, but the school’s response, access to technological resources and family structure played a significant role in easing or increasing the burden. The study argues that COVID-19 has exacerbated the gap between the well-off and the Disadvantaged in terms of class and where work is concerned. In addition, it argues that although children’s education
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in South Africa is run in a structural setting, ERE shows how parents exercise their agency on a micro-level. Furthermore, this research argues that the way in which public schools are structured brings dependency on government as well as lack of social capital.