Cape Town - The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) says it has received more than 3 300 late applications for grades 1 and 8 pupils, while more applications were received daily.
On Sunday, the department confirmed that it received “new, extremely late applications for 3 391 Grade 1 and Grade 8 learners since January 1 for the 2023 school year”.
This comes after ANC MPL, Khalid Sayed, on Friday said following a presentation of the standing committee on education, that “there is a crisis of unplaced learners in the province”.
“It was very clear from Friday’s meeting that we are in a crisis of unplaced learners. The department continued to deny that we are in a crisis. Parents who applied early, their children are still not placed. When they do place children in schools, they overcrowd our schools in poor and working class communities,” said Sayed.
Sayed said a caucus meeting was scheduled for Monday to reflect on the committee’s presentation and the way forward.
Education MEC David Maynier said they had already placed a number of pupils.
“We have already placed 2 066 of these applicants, and placement is in progress for 1 325 of the Grade 1 and Grade 8 learners for whom applications were received extremely late.
“These applications pose a great challenge for the department, as they are arriving daily in an unpredictable pattern, so we are constantly chasing a moving target.
“We ask for patience as we make progress in placing these extremely late applicants. They have arrived without warning, and we cannot predict where and when these late applicants will arrive. This has made planning our resource allocation in advance extremely difficult,” said Maynier.
Meanwhile, the department confirmed it had delivered all 662 classrooms scheduled to be completed by January 31.
The remainder of the 842 classrooms announced last year were on track for delivery by the end of March.
“Over and above the unprecedented 842 classrooms we committed to, we will deploy an additional 70 mobile classrooms to areas where the need for placement is greatest, and to cope with the challenge that extremely late applications pose,” said Maynier.
As of February 6, the department resolved 120 485, or 98.8%, of the unique Grade 1 and Grade 8 placement applications for the 2023 school year, and was in the process of placing 1 476, or 1.2% for the 2023 school year.
Cape Times