Gauteng education confident it will place all learners
The Gauteng Education Department is confident it will be able to place almost 20 000 learners over the next couple days.
Briefing media in Johannesburg, MEC Panyaza Lesufi appealed for patience.
The department has been under pressure to place some 58 000 Grade 1 and Grade 8 learners who didn't have a seat in a classroom on the first day of school.
This number has been significantly reduced, but the department is still receiving new applications.
"In the month of January alone we received 12 821 completely new applications," said Lesufi.
Lesufi thanked schools for their assistance in taking in extra learners.
"All our schools have cooperated. If they did not cooperated, we would not have been able to reduce this number to where it is. People are choosing Gauteng and we can't punish them, but we have to manage to situation. We will continue to persuade schools to accept additional learners," said Lesufi.