School sport matches including provincial and national school sport tournaments may resume, but without spectators and with various Covid-19 controls in place.

The basic education department gazetted the new regulations on Saturday.

Other activities including physical education, extra-curricular activities and interschool, district, provincial and national school sport tournaments also received the go ahead.

Championships, tournaments and interschool sport matches that require pupils to travel to other schools or provinces may also resume without spectators, provided that public schools are subject to compliance with the regulations for safety measures.

“A list of names of all officials, learners and any other person from the visiting school must be provided to the hosting school at least three days before an event or match, for the purposes of compliance with direction.”

According to the regulations, co-curricular and enrichment programmes such as oral history, spelling bees, moot court, speech contests, debates and school clubs may also resume activities, without spectators.

Subject to sub-direction and strict adherence to all social distancing, hygiene and safety measures, choir practice or rehearsals, choir competitions and interschool choir events may also resume, without spectators.

“In order to comply with the venue capacity, the categories permitted to participate in respect of the SA Choral Eisteddfod (SASCE) are limited to small ensembles, farm schools, and special schools, female and male voices.”

According to the new regulations, certain safety measures must be adhered to when resuming the activities.

The regulations state that a maximum of 100 people for indoor venues and a maximum of 250 people for outdoor venues are allowed.

“ ... and if the venue is too small to hold 100 persons indoors or 250 persons outdoors, observing a distance of at least one and a half metres from each other, then not more than 50% of the capacity of the venue may be used, subject to strict adherence to all health protocols and social distancing measures.”

Other safety measures include the following:

• A Covid-19 compliance officer must be appointed for each venue.
• There must only be one controlled entrance to the venue.
• All participants must undergo health and temperature screening before warm-up or an event.
• Any person who enters the venue must undergo the health and temperature screening.
• Hand sanitisers must be available at the entrance gate and every person who enters the venue must sanitise their hands.
• Participants and officials must sanitise their hands before and after a match or event.
• A person, who leaves the venue temporarily and returns again, must undergo the process of health and temperature screening, and hand sanitising.
• For contact tracing purposes only, a register of all officials and pupils from visiting and hosting schools who are attending a school match or event must be kept by the hosting school for at least 21 days.
• A digital registration and health screening platform, such as the Teacher Connect Application, may also be used to assist with the administration of the registration process.
• If a person has Covid-19 symptoms or presents with a temperature above 38 °C, that person must be refused access into the venue.
• The number of people, including participants, referees, adjudicators, technical officials, volunteers, medical team, media or broadcast teams, and stadium workers permitted at a venue at any one time is limited. Teams, technical officials, volunteers, relevant stadium staff, medical staff and registered members of the media or broadcast teams must leave the venue as soon as their responsibilities are completed.

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