TnT Unleashed 1pic4twenty Blog

Any other people out there who don’t really enjoy football – or soccer, as many of us here in South Africa call it, and who aren’t too concerned with watching the 2010 world cup in the various cities in South Africa when it all gets under way?

Are there other people, especially parents of kids still in our South African schools, out there who would rather have had their school children enjoy their usual six week school holidays than watch the 2010 world cup?

Why shorten the school holidays over the festive season of December and January just so that the usual middle of the year winter holiday of three weeks can be extended to five weeks? Why? Because of the world cup. Hm!

So, are all our South African school kids and teachers who are struggling to cope with the education system in South Africa going to learn something from this football, from watching the football? Will it help the education in this country improve? How many football players in a team? Are there enough places for all the school kids? After dedicating 5 weeks of school holidays in the middle of the year, in South African’s winter, to following the 2010 world cup, are they going to grow up to make the South African team and be famous football players?

Wouldn’t the majority of them have rather preferred to have a 6 week summer holiday, especially after the stress of a long hard year of school, struggling to fit in all the school projects and orals required by the system, and after writing end of year exams? And their parents? Wouldn’t a lot of the parents have preferred that the kids get some more time off of school – all the school homework that school kids get these days is stressful for parents too – and if the kids haven’t had a proper rest, the new school year just starts off stressful right away, and gets worse.

Also, working parents may often only be able to get some time off work over the festive season, to spend time with their children – and are not usually too worried about too much time off in the middle of the year – but now, younger children, who have parents who can’t get time off work in the middle of 2010, will have to be taken care of by babysitters or other plans will have to be made. Who’s going to take care of your children for five weeks while you work – or is your work closing for five weeks too – to accommodate the soccer?

To little kids, 4 weeks is really long, and they enjoyed their shorter summer holiday, but older kids feel the difference. Although South African winters are mostly not really very cold, surely the older kids would rather have their longer holiday in the summer, than in the winter? Summer holidays are for enjoying “seasons in the sun” – for swimming and watersports, for braais and boerewors, for having fun in the sun. Winter is not as fun for swimming and enjoying the sun. It’s colder. So it makes sense in South Africa to have a shorter winter school holiday.

For parents in South Africa, the summer holidays are usually long enough to get the run up to Christmas and the New Year out of the way, long enough to get the “back-to-school” goodies sorted, and still have some days over to enjoy the kids being home with no school homework stress. But because of the 2010 world cup football happening in South Africa, this has all been messed up.

How many of South African’s population are under the age of ten, need a fantastic education, and couldn’t give a hoot about the soccer? An improved education system is what they need, not a shorter summer holiday so that the adults can enjoy the soccer in the unusual longer winter holiday of 2010.

If school in South Africa was not becoming so stressful for children, parents and teachers, then fine, make the summer holiday shorter because of the soccer.

© Teresa Schultz 2010