The Western Cape Education Department is racing against time to complete more than 100 classrooms to meet its month-end deadline to deliver 842 classrooms to ease placement woes.
Calls have been made for the department to act fast as 487 Grade 1 and Grade 8 learners have yet to be placed in schools and the March 31 deadline to complete these classrooms coincides with the end of the first term.
The department is also preparing to open online applications for next year, from March 13 to April 14.
The department said from the number of applications that were on time - 19 are yet to be placed. And for late applications, received last year, 42 learners were yet to be accommodated. The WCED said they also had to contend with more than 4 000 applications received between January and February and was able to place 3 619 learners.
MEC for Education David Maynier said they were on track to deliver 842 classrooms by March 31, as 721 have already been delivered.
“We understand that the placement process can cause frustration for parents, and we ask for their patience and assure them that we are doing everything we can to ensure their children’s placement is finalised as soon as possible,” said Maynier.
Maynier said parents of these learners were either unreachable or had rejected the offer of placement.
“The challenge with late applications is that we do not know how many late applications we will receive, where the extremely late placement will be required, the grades, language, and ages of the learners, and the specific subjects and specialised needs of the learners,” said Maynier.
Faizel Jarvis said she applied in October for her two children at the only English-medium school in Piketberg.
“We have been to the circuit office to the district office as well as the WCED in Cape Town but with no successes. We even sent emails to the MEC of Education, but he didn't even reply.
“My children are being denied their right to education and they are being disadvantaged and losing out on a lot of school work,” said Jarvis.
Barbara Wadyewhata said her 18-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter were still at home as the schools she applied to were full.
Her son was previously enrolled at Wynberg Boys High School up until 2021.
“There was an issue of distance as my son would come home late sometimes due to sport and on two occasions he got robbed even at gunpoint,” said Wadyewhata.
Wadyewhata said her son, who was meant to be in matric last year, was admitted to a psychiatric hospital after he was diagnosed with depression.
“He was released in May, but by that time he had been de-registered and was only eligible to write this year. However, my son was on an academic scholarship and his donor was unable to pay for another year,” she said.
She added that they tried to explore other options, but the schools she approached were full. Even her daughter who is meant to be in Grade 9 could not find a school.
ANC spokesperson, Muhammad Khalid Sayed, said the placement challenges were an ongoing crisis that saw hundreds of learners missing an entire first term.
“We have a multi-year crisis of insufficient placement spaces and the DA is incapable and has no political will to resolve it, as of Thursday, hundreds of learners have missed out of 31 of the 51 days for the first quarter of 2023 academic year.
“The first step to address the problem is to ensure that no public school in the province is allowed to have class sizes less than 35, all classes in the former Model C schools must be increased to at least 35 to create more placement spaces,” he said.
Founder and co-ordinator of Parents for Equal Education SA, Vanessa le Roux, accused the department of not accurately depicting how severe the placement problems were.
“They have boasted about this rapid building plan, where hundreds of classrooms would have been delivered ... but just in the Mitchells Plain district there are over 2 000 learners (who) have not yet been placed, and that area (has) been a hotspot for years,” said Le Roux.
“We have asked that they give a detailed report on the number of learners that are not placed. It is (nearly) the end of the first term, many learners have started with first term tests, yet thousands have not seen a day in class,” she said.
Weekend Argus