Gauteng schools ready for the 2014 school year

Gauteng Education MEC, Barbara Creecy, says that Gauteng schools are ready for the 2014 school year.

This during a visit at the Matseliso Secondary School in Meadowlands as part of the final leg of the school readiness campaign for 2014.

The MEC’s visit is one of over 2 000 visits that district officials and senior managers are conducting to ensure that all Public Schools in Gauteng are ready for the 2014 academic year.

The visits focus on pupil admissions, textbook orders and deliveries, academic preparedness and staffing for the new school year.

“To date, we can report that all Gauteng schools have ordered textbooks and we are monitoring delivery and top-up orders for those township schools that needed assistance to purchase the new Caps textbooks for Grades 7, 8, 9 and 12,” says Creecy.

“We currently are advertising 99 vacant principal posts created by natural attrition. The intention is to ensure that these positions are filled by January 2014.”

“GDE has a good track record of starting learning and teaching on the first day of the new school year,” said Creecy.

“Ensuring that pupils have teachers, textbooks and timetables for every subject in every grade is an essential part of ensuring that we achieve this objective.”

The department has received 131 000 applications for Grade 1 and 114 546 for Grade 8 for the 2014 intake.

The majority of these pupils have been placed in schools, including the 24 new schools that will be opening in January 2014 to deal with increased demand for learning space. A further four schools will be opened in April.

The GDE has established admission centres in each of the 15 Districts and a Head Office admission centre to facilitate placement of pupils and speedily resolve admission queries and referrals. To date they have processed 600 queries. The MEC’s office also received 48 appeals in relation to admission placements.

“We urge parents who still have queries about the placement of their children to visit the district offices for assistance rather than going direct to the schools,” says Creecy.

“While we may not be able to accommodate all pupils in their school of preference, we will endeavour to fulfil our constitutional obligation to offer all Gauteng’s pupils a place in a school.”

In the case of schools where a particular entry-level grade has been subscribed fully, the District Director responsible will declare that particular grade of the school as full for that particular year.

In such cases, no further applications will be considered. The admissions regulations make provision for parents/ guardians to object to the District Director’s decision in cases where applications have been unsuccessful and appeal to the Member of the Executive Council if the pupil remains unplaced.

In cases where pupils cannot be accommodated because a particular grade applied for at a school has been declared full, the MEC will provide for alternative placement, taking into consideration the proximity to the pupil’s home or parent’s work address.

The schools readiness programme includes the assessment of facilities.

“We are confident that schools will be ready for teaching and learning to start on day one of the 2014 academic year,” says Creecy.