Educational activists and political parties have raised serious concerns about Gauteng’s school admissions system, warning that systemic failures are placing children’s futures at risk and violating their constitutional right to basic education.

On January 26, the DA in Gauteng joined frustrated parents in a picket outside the Gauteng Department of Education’s Tshwane North District office in Pretoria North.

The protest focused on the growing number of learners who remain unplaced weeks after the start of the 2026 academic year, particularly in grades 1 and 8.

Parents carried placards reading ‘a pain no family should bear,’ reflecting widespread despair among families who say they are trapped in a system marked by unanswered emails, technical breakdowns, and what they describe as government inaction.

Many fear their children’s futures are being lost in an administrative maze.

DA MPL Bronwynn Engelbrecht said the situation had moved beyond inconvenience and had become a human crisis.

“This is not an inconvenience but cruelty through incompetence. South Africa’s Constitution guarantees every child the right to basic education. That right means nothing when a department cannot tell a parent where their child will go to school,” Engelbrecht said.

Hundreds of learners across the Tshwane North district remain without confirmed placements, while others have been placed at schools far from their homes.

Parents report that children are waking before dawn to travel long distances, arriving exhausted before lessons even begin. Families are spending money they do not have on daily transport, while learners with special educational needs are travelling for hours, undoing therapy progress and facing safety risks.

Engelbrecht said parents are not demanding special treatment, but basic competence from the state. “Parents are not asking for miracles. They are asking the government to do its job,” she said.

The DA handed over a memorandum to the district office demanding that all outstanding placements be finalised within seven working days.

The party also called for a public district recovery plan, a walk-in admissions help desk for parents, full disclosure of placement backlogs and school capacity, and consequence management for officials who failed to place learners on time.

Concerns about the admissions system are not limited to political parties. Civil society organisations and education activists have also warned that the centralised online system is failing schools, parents and learners.

Education activist organisation Equal Education said chaos at district offices and ongoing failures in the admissions process have left parents and learners feeling exhausted, unsafe, and deeply frustrated as the school year gets underway.

Gauteng organiser for Equal Education Fikile Sibisi said when schools reopened, the organisation visited departmental district offices across Gauteng and found parents standing in long queues from early morning, desperate for assistance.

“When schools reopened, and we went to the districts, all we saw were parents in lines waiting to be assisted, but district offices hardly helped parents with the issues they faced on the online admissions system,” Sibisi said.

She said many parents had applied on time but were placed at schools far from their homes, with no transport provided by the department.

“Parents are walking long distances with their children or paying money they do not have for transport. It is not safe, and the department knows this, yet nothing is done,” Sibisi said.

Sibisi said many children will be left in limbo after 31 January, forced to wait indefinitely to see if they will be placed.

“Learners were standing in the lines themselves. There was no excitement about starting a new school year. It is very unfair to expect children to queue for their right to education,” she said.

She added that while the department maintains the system is not at fault, parents experience it as a failure.

“When we spoke to MEC Matome Chiloane, the issue was said not to be the system. He said there are not enough schools,” Sibisi said.

Equal Education also believes the root problem is a lack of sufficient schools to meet growing demand.

“Every year, parents are frustrated. People move to Gauteng to look for work, but schools are not being built at the same pace,” he said.

Sibisi said Equal Education’s law centre has visited districts and schools to gather information and assist families, and will follow up on placements. She added that the organisation is now advocating for catch-up programmes so that no learner is left behind.
Equal Education’s Law Centre can be contacted on WhatsApp on 073 058 8622.

AfriForum head of education projects Carien Bloem said the centralised Gauteng online placement system was the primary reason thousands of grades 1 and 8 learners remained uncertain about whether, or where, they would start the 2026 school year.

“This situation shows exactly why a centralised and opaque system cannot work in a complex education environment like Gauteng,” Bloem said.

Bloem stated that the department has taken control of placements without accepting responsibility for the consequences, shifting the burden of failure onto schools and parents.

She closed by questioning why departmental officials working with admissions were on leave in December while families faced mounting uncertainty.

The department said late applications are open until January 31, and that only schools with available space appear on the online system. Parents may select one school, and placement at that school is final.

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