Learner placement in Polokwane schools saw parents camp outside the Department of Education’s circuit office. Parents and guardians are unhappy that they cannot get their children into their schools of choice. They feel ‘paying schools’ have better facilities, with one parent suggesting their children squeeze into classes at those schools until more space can be made. The department have acknowledged that the city has too little schools to accommodate all its learners.

With many parents still awaiting placement for their children, the question that arises year after year is when the department will prioritise building more schools to facilitate the growing number of learners in and around the city.

Annually, the 10th school day is used as measure for learner numbers across schools, but by January 27, departmental media liaison officer, Mike Maringa said the process of finding space for learners was still ongoing.

The situation of unplaced learners has, as in previous years, seen frustrated parents camp outside the department’s Polokwane circuit offices on Wednesday and Thursday last week. They later dispersed after accepting a solution offered to them, that their children would be placed in available schools, and not necessarily their schools of choice.

Learners who have not been placed have already missed well over two weeks of lessons since schools opened for the 2023 academic year, on January 11.

Many learners who had applied timeously in 2022, were rejected for various reasons including not meeting the feeder zone criteria. Their appeals against their application rejections were also set aside, with the department stating the same reason.

Maringa confirmed to Polokwane Observer that there was space to accommodate learners at Good Hope Primary and Westenburg Secondary School, however, parents and guardians still did not seem satisfied by the options provided to them.

Amid the placement chaos, parents elected a representative who liaised with the department on their behalf about possible solutions for their children to still be absorbed in their schools of choice.

Fhulufhelo Mudau said parents want their children placed in different schools than those suggested to them by the department.

“We take our children to paying public schools as the quality of their activities is better than those in other public schools. We proposed to the department to let the children squeeze into those classes while plans are being made for mobile classrooms. The city needs more schools because the city is growing,” he explained.

Maringa said the process of matching the ratio of the city’s learner population to the number of schools is intricate, however still ongoing.

“We hope that National Treasury increases our budget so that we focus a reasonable amount of money on building more public schools and extending those that have a current small threshold. We do acknowledge that most schools already have more learners that they can facilitate,” he explained.