Huge drop in unplaced grade 1 and grade 8 pupils in Gauteng schools for next year

The number of children in grade 1 and grade 8 that had not been placed in schools in Gauteng for next year has dropped dramatically, the education department said on Sunday.

Provincial spokesperson Steve Mabona said they had reduced the number of unplaced pupils from 34,553 on November 3, to 9,618.

Mabona said 272,741 (96.4%) of the 282,787 applicants had now been placed in schools.

The department had also received 160 appeals from parents that would now be processed.

“Working closely and collaboratively with our schools, especially those in high pressure areas, we managed to increase capacity to accommodate more unplaced learners; consequently, most of the high-pressure schools are full,” he said.

“We have identified schools where additional classroom capacity is required to allow for additional placements,” Mabona said.

He said procurement processes were under way to provide mobile classrooms to those schools.

Schools with a high number of applicants had agreed to increase capacity to accommodate more learners.

Mabona said 60% of parents had applied at only one school which had further hindered the process.

The department also denied allegations that it planned to move Afrikaans-speaking learners to township schools.

“We would like to reiterate that time is too precious to waste on negative organisations who do not have a desire for transformation, social cohesion and nonracialism.

“Such people aim to further oppress the downtrodden and to reduce the positive gains that were achieved since the dawn of our democracy,” MEC Panyaza Lesufi said.

Lesufi is expected to visit schools in Tshwane and Ekurhuleni this week.