The picture that has emerged on the last day for Gauteng online school applications reveals there were 596 schools where demand exceeded available spaces while 359 schools had less than 50 applications for grades 1 and 8.
Parents who want their children to attend grade 1 and grade 8 at public schools in the province next year have until midnight to submit their online applications.
The department said it had received 535‚064 applications since it opened its online application system on April 16. Of the applications‚ 251‚808 were for grade 1 and 283‚256 for grade 8.
It said some of those 596 schools recorded between 1‚538 and 1‚960 applications for either grade 1 or grade 8.
Gauteng education MEC Panyaza Lesufi told Power FM that the online registration process had given the department information that allowed it to plan appropriately and correctly.
“It makes things easy for us‚ we now know where there is a need to build new schools‚ we now know where there is a need to change teaching languages in some of the schools and we also know where we need to shut down some of the schools‚” Lesufi said.
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