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School placements for Gauteng learners take place in October

The civil rights watchdog AfriForum is pleased to learn that parents will soon know in which schools their grade 1 and grade 8 children will be placed in the 2021 school year.

Parents will be notified per SMS from 1 October 2020 and will then have seven days to accept the Department’s offer regarding the school. It is important for parents to know that they will not all receive SMS’s at the same time. SMS’s regarding the placement offer can be expected anytime from 1 October to 30 November 2020.

Parents will possibly receive more than one offer. If one of the two offers is accepted, the other one falls away automatically. To accept the placement, parents can visit www.gdeadmissions.gov.za.

According to the Gauteng Department of Education learners are placed according to the distance they live from the school – learners who live nearest to the school will receive preference. The feeder zone and the school’s capacity will also be taken into account.

The Department however added that schools in Gauteng are still experiencing a huge problem regarding capacity. It will again not be possible to accommodate all the learners that applied, in the 2021 school year. In Gauteng 409 770 grade 1 and grade 8 applications were received of which only 373 634 of these learners will be able to be accommodated in schools.

“AfriForum is pleased to learn that placements will take place shortly and we hope that this will provide parents with confirmation of their children’s education for the 2021 school year. It however still remains a huge concern that there is not enough schools in Gauteng to meet the amount of learners’ education needs. However, the solution is not at all to give up single-medium schools to cope with this problem, like Panyaza Lesufi claims. Quality education lies in mother-tongue education in single-medium schools. More schools need to be built and more attention needs to be given to the development of quality mother-tongue education for all learners in Gauteng and in South Africa,” says Carien Bloem, Manager of Education at AfriForum.

If parents experience any problems with the placement process, they can contact the Department of Education at 0800 000 798. Parents are also welcome to send an email to onderwys@afriforum.co.za.

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