Too many kids, too few desks

As parents around Gauteng dropped off their children for the start of the school year yesterday Maphefo Maroala had to explain to hers why they could not go.

For three days the mother has been struggling to find places for her children in grades 5, 3 and R.

She moved with them from Tembisa, Ekurhuleni, in December after she and her fiancé had decided to live together at his home in Fairlands, Randburg.

The desperate mother of three said the Grade R applications she had made for her five-year-old daughter had not been accepted because of lack of space at nearby schools.

Maroala is only one of hundreds of parents who queued at Bordeaux Primary School, in Randburg, yesterday to try to secure places for their children.

Another mother, who asked not to be named, said her son's study permit had been issued 18 months after she applied for it - and just two weeks before it expired.

"He is a very talented boy who is now being forced to stay at home because someone failed to do his job right," she said.

Khabonina Mthembu, 43, from Ecaleni, in Tembisa, said she was in a panic about finding a school for her brother's grandson, who unexpectedly came to live with her this week.

Gauteng education MEC Panyaza Lesufi has advised parents making late applications for places for their children to cooperate with district education officials, saying they "must just chill".

Lesufi said the department had received about 20000 late applications.

At IR Griffith Primary School, Randburg, Charlene Roetz shared first-day nerves with her pupils on her first day as a Grade 1 class teacher after teaching Grade 2 for seven years.

"Grade 1 sets the tone for a child's school career. I have to make a difference in their lives because everyone remembers their Grade 1 teacher," she said.