Most South African schools have four ten week terms per year, and four holidays totalling about 60 days per year.  Gauteng independent schools have three twelve week terms, and three slightly longer holidays per year, as well as a “half term” weekend, usually about 5 days holiday together.    Which system is better?  Or has the school system lost contact with parents completely in an age when both parents are likely to be working?

The consensus of educational leaders is that children become exhausted in the course of a term, and need a holiday to process what they have learned, and rejuvenate.  The pace at which schools run – far more intense than the average office – tires teachers as well, and they too need the holidays to summon up the energy to continue.  If we accept this argument we might still want to suggest that there are reasons to reconsider whether schools should actually close during the holidays, or if there is something constructive they could do.

So I want to throw a spanner in the works.  I want to suggest that we should look at schools remaining open during the holidays.  So that learners would get the chance (not be forced) to go to a different school and learn non-curriculum stuff:  cooking, fine-art, new sports codes, creative writing courses, calligraphy, computer programing, building drones, airplanes, bridges, boats, radio control, how to build a computer, car mechanics, some experimental sciences classes, some advanced mathematics, astronomy, home nursing, training dogs and horses, playing the stock market … the possibilities are endless.  I don’t think that teachers should baby-sit these classes, if the kids come, they come, if they don’t, well, they don’t! Teachers  should be paid to teach.  And yes, not every teacher will have something to offer.  But think of the spark it would generate in the kids!   Local businesses could partly sponsor courses that would promote their products, or encourage learners to explore a career path in their industry – some might even want the little darlings to work on their premises (oops – child labour – but you get the point)

So we don’t have that right now.  But we do have the internet.  Courses for kids on any one of these subjects is available on the Net – either for free or at very low cost (unless you WANT to pay top dollar, of course) and just about every kid can find them with a bit of encouragement.  Why not find out what the kids would like to do (if they had the opportunity) this holiday – and then make it possible for them to make a start.

A friend’s son started experimenting with home made propellants in their back garden at the age of twelve.  He and his friends built steadily more powerful propellants and rockets – until one flew over the house and set the shed on fire in a next door garden.   By the time he was fourteen everyone knew he wanted to study rocketry.   If he had been offered the opportunity to experiment through a school he probably would have learned more quickly and more safely – and that shed would probably still be standing.