Gauteng education says it has placed majority of grade 1 and 8 applicants

The Gauteng department of education says it has made progress in placing grade 1 and 8 pupils in schools for the 2025 academic year.

This is according to education MEC Matome Chiloane, who on Monday gave an update on the placement in schools.

He said so far, the department has placed 325,734 of the 325,858 applications that qualified as complete and 19,032 incomplete applications will be placed during the late application period. 

The incomplete applicants are those who didn't provide the department with their full information when they made their applications. Chiloane said those in that category of incomplete applications will be able to select a school with available space for placement from December 11. 

He said currently there are only 124 unplaced grade 8 pupils in the Kempton Park area.

The department said it has engaged with the parents of those pupils through SMS communication and parents have been invited to attend the meeting scheduled for Monday at 6pm at Laerskool Birchleigh. At the meeting the department is expected to provide a comprehensive update on the progress and finalisation of the placement process for their children.

Chiloane encouraged invited parents to attend the meeting. He said he was happy to talk about the work they have done so far, and that they were in a better position than they had ever been since they started with online placements. 

“I know that there will be people who are questioning here and there, but in terms of grade 1, we have placed all the completed applications. When you are incomplete, we didn't place you. We can't place a person that we don't know. So they didn't give us [enough] information. We are left with 124 only,” he said. 

There were areas in Gauteng where people were moving from into the inner centre because of employment opportunities, he said. “For example, I will speak about the Merafong area, people are moving from those areas into the inner centre. As they move in they bring their children and some of their schools will be left empty.”

Chiloane said Kempton Park was one of the fastest-growing areas in the province, particularly in Thembisa, because of the developments that are taking place there. He said when pupils are placed at the school that they choose within the five options, he would not entertain their appeals because they chose those schools. 

“We only work with those that are placed in schools which they did not apply for. Those are the appeals we entertain. Those that chose the schools, we place your child in one of those schools — it is non-negotiable.”

Another problem was parents who would go to the department and indicate that they just realised their children are placed at a school where they cannot afford to pay fees, he said.

“As a parent, you should have done research that this school requires fees. I have a parent who came to me about a school in Hyde Park. That parent chose Hyde Park. It was number one for her. The child gets placed in Hyde Park, and the parent comes back to me and says I went to Hyde Park, it is expensive.”

He said as the government, they were going through a difficult period in terms of finances and they did not have money to subsidise parents who didn't want to pay fees. 

“Parents, the school that we have placed your child that you have applied for, you have to pay the fees. If you don't pay the fees, the school will collapse.

“That is why you find schools that were quantile 4 and 5, former model C schools which a few years back were nice and proper; after some years now you go back to those schools, you come back and say those schools are dilapidated. They are dilapidated because parents don't want to pay fees, but they want the schools that pay fees.”

Some of the schools require a lot of money, he added.

“We are sitting with a debt of almost R500m for rates and taxes; we don't have that money. If you don't want to pay fees, be honest, come to us — we have more than 1,400 no-fee paying schools. Come to us, we will put your child there.”

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