School space woes continue
History can repeat itself when schools will be turning learners away in the 2016 school year. Review spoke to several primary schools in the city to find out how the process was progressing.
POLOKWANE – History can repeat itself when schools will be turning learners away in the 2016 school year.
This is according to parents who slept at schools since Saturday to make sure that they get the applications for their children in on time and be the first to get a place in Polokwane schools for the 2016 school year.
Polokwane schools were bombarded with requests for admission during the recent period set aside for this purpose, with many coming from learners outside the feeder area of the schools. The period for enrolment into schools started on Monday, and will continue to the end of October.
In the beginning of this year thousands of children had to be showed away when schools reached their full capacity in the city.
Review spoke to several primary schools in the city to find out how the process was progressing, whether they had any space left for late registrations and how they handled more applications for the available space.
• At Ivypark, enrolment was going well and there have not yet been long queues. So far they have enrolled between 150 and 200 learners and expect more as the cut off date of October 31 comes closer.
Applicants who did not find a space at the school are contacted and given a notice to apply elsewhere.
• At Pemps (Polokwane English Medium Primary School) the enrolment is progressing very well with long queues from early in the morning.
The school had already enrolled over 500 learners by Tuesday. The school said procedures must be followed and that the department will take up applications which are being denied to follow its procedures.
• At PCS (Pietersburg Comprehensive School) there have been long queues and they filter out by 10:00. The school is already dealing with more applications then it is able to handle and is looking into applications of feeder zones from areas close to the school before they except any applications. When the application is unsuccessful the parents are given a departmental complaint form to fill in. It will be taken to the education department circuit office who deals with the placement of learners.
• Laerskool Pietersburg-Oos experienced some queues but has already reached full capacity and learners who now apply are put on a waiting list for possible openings. The school also refers parents to other schools and the education department when they have complaints.
• Laerskool Pietersburg had a good enrolment process and reached their capacity already. The school also makes use of a waiting list but most parents who are unsuccessful are referred to the education department with complaints.
Some schools that Review spoke to said that they had been forced to open more classes to accommodate learners at the beginning of the year and some of them still have not received any assistance from the department in the payment of the new teachers appointed by the department. They said that the payment of the schools’ teachers had to come out of the school’s own pocket and this created problems in the schools.
Limpopo department of education senior manager for communication services, Naledzani Rasila, said that he schools should contact the department in cases where the department is failing to pay teachers as the department is not aware of this. Due to continuing growth patterns in the city, the department is looking to start construction on Bendor Secondary School.
Rasila said that the plans for the building of the new school in Bendor is still on track and that information of the school will be made available closer to the starting of the building process in 2016, Rasila said. Earlier he said the school will cater for 560 learners but this is a drop in the bucket for Polokwane in terms of the demand for schools. He also said that the school will be a modern school, with whiteboards instead of the old chalkboards, and each class will have a storeroom.
The department and municipality also confirmed that the initial phase will consist of 16 classrooms each accommodating 35 learners, a laboratory and an administration block, while the need to expand will be evaluated on an ongoing basis. The location of the new school as earlier reported by Review, is an open space in Outspan Drive.
MEC for education, Jerry Ndou, said during his budget speech that the department will be building 10 new schools in Limpopo to be completed during the financial year with a further 16 completed over a longer term.
Ndou added an additional 858 classrooms are also to be built in public schools during the financial year and 1 892 classrooms over the medium term. The department has been allocated a budget of R805 million for infrastructure development, solely funded by the education infrastructure grant.
Parents feel this will be too late for the enrolments of learners for 2016.
