Opinion: An interdict on teen vaccination will harm basic education and violate the rights of learners

The African Christian Democratic Party and partners are in the High Court today and tomorrow seeking to stop the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines to adolescents. But in a context where the majority of learners attend schools with infrastructure problems and serious overcrowding, vaccines remain a critical tool to keep learners safe and prevent outbreaks of infection at schools, argue Julia Chaskalson and Zeenat Sujee.

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When kids go hungry: What happens when school meals stop?

For over 9 million learners across the country, school meals are a lifeline, but this came to a grinding halt during the hard COVID-19 lockdown period. As a result, many learners became dependent on soup kitchens and donations. In the fourth part of a six-part series on child hunger and nutrition, Kathryn Cleary speaks to learners about how they were affected and how some organisations are fighting for improvements.

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Analysis: Hunger remains a crisis in SA, despite new survey numbers

The second wave of findings from the National Income Dynamics Study: Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (NIDS-CRAM) released today, shows that household hunger has declined by about a quarter since the release of the first wave of findings. Although encouraging, there are still severe and unacceptably high levels of childhood hunger and stunting, writes Kathryn Cleary.

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