Pretoria – The Gauteng Department of Education says it has received 131 000 applications for Grade 1 and 114 546 for Grade 8 for the 2014 intake.
The majority of these learners have been placed in schools, including the 24 new schools the department will be opening in January 2014, to deal with the increased demand for learning spaces.
“A further four schools will be opened in April,” said Education MEC Barbara Creecy on Wednesday.
She said the department had established admission centres in each of the 15 districts and a Head Office admission centre to facilitate placement of learners across all schools and grades and speedily resolve admission queries and referrals.
To date, they have processed 600 queries. The MEC’s office had also received 48 appeals in relation to admission placements and 47 of which have been attended to.
“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. While we may not be able to accommodate all learners in their school of preference, we will endeavour to fulfil our constitutional obligation to offer a school place to all of Gauteng’s learners” said the MEC.
In the case of schools where a particular entry-level grade has been fully subscribed, 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, explained Creecy. However the admissions regulations make provision for parents/guardians to object to the District Directors decision in cases where applications have been unsuccessful and appeal to the Member of the Executive Council (MEC) if the learner remains unplaced.
Creecy was speaking during a visit to Matseliso Secondary School in Meadowlands as part of the school readiness campaign for 2014. The MEC, district officials and senior managers have been conducting over 200 visits to ensure smooth learner admissions, textbook orders and deliveries, academic preparedness and staffing for the new school year.
“GDE has a good track record of starting learning and teaching on the first day of the new school year. Ensuring that learners have teachers, textbooks, and timetables for every subject in every grade are an essential part of ensuring that we achieve this objective,” she said.
All schools in the province had placed their textbook orders and the department was currently monitoring delivery and top up orders for those township schools who needed assistance to purchase the new CAPS textbooks for Grades 7, 8, 9 and 12.
The department was currently advertising 99 vacant principal posts created due to natural attrition to ensure that these are filled by January 2014.
“We are confident that schools will be ready for teaching and learning to start on day one of the 2014 academic year,” said the MEC. – SAnews.gov.za
