The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng demands that no learner in 2023 must miss a day of schooling due to the Gauteng Department of Education’s failure to allocate school placements before the end of this year.
The Gauteng Department of Education MEC, Panyaza Lesufi, is tasked with a responsibility to ensure that all parents and guardians who applied on time for the Grades 1 and 8 online admissions should all receive placement offers.
The late placement of learners can no longer be tolerated, as it denies learners their constitutional right to access basic education. This will result in learners missing out on the much-needed everyday learning and falling behind in the curriculum.
Many learners across the province continue to suffer and are not being allocated schools timeously despite that they applied on time. This causes uncertainty and frustration amongst the parents who are supposed to budget and plan for their children’s stationery, transport, and school uniforms.
The DA propose that the department must use the information received from the online admissions to plan and prepare to ensure that schools have adequate learning resources. This includes amongst others, recruiting more teachers, providing additional classrooms, and replacing dilapidated mobile classrooms.
We will continue to monitor the process of learner placements to ensure that all parents and guardians who applied on time receive placement offers. Should we receive complaints from parents that they have not received any placement offers, we will directly engage with the department.