Several thousand learners still unplaced for new academic year

The Department of Basic Education’s (DBE) says it is prepared for the 2022 academic year, despite thousands of learners remaining unplaced. On Tuesday, the parliamentary portfolio committee on education received a briefing from DBE on the matter as the Gauteng province still had more than 276 000 unplaced learners, KwaZulu-Natal had 226 142, the Western Cape, 29 550 and the Eastern Cape 28 219. Committee chairperson, Bongiwe Mbinqo-Gigaba, said: “We noted the numbers.

It is concerning, but we also understand the reasons provided by the DBE for these learners not being placed.” According to the presentation by basic education minister Angie Motshekga, the unplaced learners were due to late applications, which were a continuing problem, despite the provinces’ massive advocacy on application cut-off dates. “This is caused by parents who ignore the published closing dates, as well as informal settlements that spring up around established communities, as it is difficult to predict expected numbers ahead of the New Year.”

Motshekga said the predicted numbers brought more challenges in large urban areas as it impacted on a whole range of provisioning issues, ranging from classroom space to teachers and textbooks. “English medium schools are perceived to provide better quality education and thus face an annual challenge of managing and accommodating all the applications they receive.

“Some of these challenges lead to insufficient schools in urbanised areas and the ever-present demand for spaces at schools of choice.” She said these challenges normally led to tension between the rights of school governing bodies to determine admissions policies in terms of the South African Schools Act, and the rights of parents to access education at schools of their choice.

“In provinces where learners are admitted on a first-come, first-served basis, local learners who do not apply on time experience challenges with placement.” Mbinqo-Gigaba said the committee heard that inland schools were expected to open on January 12, 2022 and coastal schools on January 19, 2022 – depending on the Covid-19 pandemic situation.

“The department has made us at ease with the plans it presented to us today. We realise that there are minor challenges and it will remain so for some time. We urge DBE and the provincial education departments to continue to work on these challenges in order to erase them.”

Gauteng Education MEC Panyanza Lesufi said school placement for grades 1 and 8 in Gauteng had been extended to the second week of December. The applicants who missed the deadline to apply to grade 1 or grade 8 for the 2022 academic year will be given a chance to apply during the late application period which is set to begin on January 5, 2022.

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Lesufi said the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) placement period deadline for the 2022 online admissions was meant for a cut-off date of November 30, 2021. However, due to the massive delay in some parents accepting offers, an extension was needed.

“It must be indicated that we have received a high volume of applications which have applied pressure to our schools capacity to accommodate learners.

“Our officials are working around the clock to manage the demand most of our schools have against the capacity that they can accommodate and what we are prioritising mostly at this stage is ensuring that learners have space in a school in Gauteng before 2022 begins.”

He plead with those who had not yet received an offer to continue checking their application status and accepting available offers of placement by logging into the GDE website: www.gdeadmissions.gov.za.

“We will be processing applications and sending out more offers throughout this extended placement period.”

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