COVID-19 and school teachers in South Africa: Interfacing SDG3 (Health and Wellbeing) and SDG4 (Quality Education)
Year: 2025
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic destabilised all economic sectors, including the education sector, particularly schools. Teachers faced a considerable health risk, and this brought to the fore the interface between two Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): SDG 3 (Health and Wellbeing) and SDG 4 (Quality Education). This work investigates the impact of COVID-19 on teachers from the Limpopo Province of South Africa and the subsequent responses implemented in reaction to the pandemic. A mixed methods approach including a teacher survey (n=226) administered in 39 schools on QuestionPro, supplemented by key informant interviews (n=14) mainly from school managers and analysed by ATLASti was used. The findings reveal that the majority of teachers (58.17%) were fully vaccinated. While 71.21% of the teachers indicated they were not aware of any loss of lives in their schools, 26.52% said they were. With regards to the impact of COVID-19 on work and productivity, most of the respondents (62.84%) strongly agreed that COVID-19 had a negative impact. Impacts on mental health included fear of teachers to interact with learners and general trauma. Although COVID-19 had subsided by the time of completing this work in December 2023, the authorities still needed to continue rolling out support systems to teachers that had been impacted by the pandemic. Therefore, long-term disaster risk and management strategies for school educators are recommended and these should be developed in consultation with teachers who experienced COVID-19 first hand.
Institution: University of South Africa
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,180
Funder: UNICEF
OpenAlex ID: W4411349986