back to school

Image credit: Pixabay

Back to school: more than 16,000 Gauteng students not placed yet due to late registrations

Thousands of parents were waiting to hear if their children will be placed for the new academic year.

back to school

Image credit: Pixabay

Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi said the Gauteng Department of Education is ready for the 2019 Academic year, “despite some challenges.”

Apart from a technical error with the online system, Janke Tolmay from eNCA reported that late registrations and “walk-ins” – parents who arrive at the office for the first time on 8 January and expecting children to be placed on 9 January – on escalated the problem.

Lesufi started with the good news and thanked the parents who used the online registration service “on time.” He said nearly 300,000 applications were received by April 2018, and more than 260,000 pupils were already placed by July. He added:

“Out of the 40,000, 16,000 didn’t give us documents, so we removed them, the remaining ones were then placed at schools where they didn’t apply, purely because the schools of their choices were full. We have a constitutional obligation to place a child at a school.”

Parents who – let’s be fair – waited too long, then appealed against the decision for various reasons. The most common reason being that the schools were too far from their home, or in a different neighbourhood. Once a parent appeals, they lose the spot at that school, and it would go to the next person.

Lesufi went on: “When they reject those [schools], we give it to the next person. And these are the people who feel they are left are without spaces.”

The department opened late registration again in October 2018, and the deadline was set for 8 January. During that period, an additional 24,000 applications were submitted. Eight thousand were placed by yesterday morning, and Lesufi was convinced the remainder would also be placed at schools before 31 January.

Parents who didn’t apply online and ignored the late registration but demanded that their children be placed yesterday could unfortunately not be assisted. Lesufi said their details were taken, but he can assure them they would be placed last in the queue.

The parents who didn’t supply the required documents can rest assured that their children will be placed by the end of January if their paperwork is up to order. The Department cannot enroll children without ID documents or birth certificates.