All pupils now placed at Afrikaans schools that took education department to court

12 January 2017 - 13:53 By Bongekile Macupe
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Image: Gallo Images/Thinkstock

Pupils who were not accepted at two Afrikaans schools in Pretoria‚ which had claimed to be full‚ had been placed at the schools on Thursday morning.

This comes after the two schools‚ Hoërskool Montana and Hoërskool Overkruin‚ applied for an interdict on Wednesday to stop the Gauteng Department of Education from placing pupils who want to study in English.

The North Gauteng High Court dismissed the case as not being urgent after it established that the department had been engaging with the schools since December to place the pupils.

On Thursday morning‚ education MEC Panyaza Lesufi met with parents at Hoërskool Overkruin in Wonderboom‚ where he informed them that their children had been placed at the school.

Speaking to the parents‚ Lesufi‚ said he had been surprised when he was served with court papers after having had lengthy discussions with the schools about the admission of the pupils.

“There is no need to involve courts in matters of admissions‚” said Lesufi.

He also added that‚ under his leadership‚ no child will be prevented from attending a school because he or she is not from some particular grouping.

“I'm not coming here to punish anyone‚ but I'm here to make sure that kids are in class‚" he said.

Since Monday‚ the department has been dealing with frustrated parents whose children have not been placed at schools even though some of them applied on time through the online application system for Grade 1 and 8 pupils.

The department says it has been working tirelessly to ensure that all pupils are placed in schools. On Wednesday‚ it said that 35 800 still had be placed - down from 58 000 on Monday.

It has also set up 62 operations centres across the province to assist parents with admissions‚ including those applying for the first time. – TMG Digital/Sowetan

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