Thousands of learners still need to placed by GDE

The Gauteng Department of Education has confirmed that approximately 28 000 Grade 1 and 8 learners still need to be placed at schools around the province. 

This number excludes the 4500 late applications that were received by the department in January.

The department has only so far managed to place 2500 of these learners. 

Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi says they are optimistic that learners will be placed by the middle of February. 

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The MEC says one of the main issues is once again the parents' choice of schools

"There is no single parent that can claim that they have applied and we have not given them a school. They can only say they have applied at school X we gave them school Y." 

Lesufi used the examples of Bryanston High and Sandown High.

"Bryanston High is full while Sandown High has the capacity to take 1300 learners.

"We tell parents to take their children to Sandown, they refuse and say the school is full of pupils from Alexandra. 

"So if they say they are not going to Sandown High, it does not mean that we have not met our constitutional mandate."  

Lesufi however believes that parents and learners will take end up accepting the spaces allocated to them by the department.