Cape Town – Teachers unions have slammed the Western Cape Education Department for poor planning ahead of this academic year after at least 18 000 pupils across the province were unable to start their first day of school on Wednesday.
That number dropped to 17 500 by Wednesday afternoon.
“The buck stops with the government and the education department,” National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa executive director Basil Manuel said.
While late applications by parents were a factor, it was the government’s responsibility to make sure children had access to education, he said.
Jessica Shelver, the spokesperson for Education MEC Debbie Schäfer, said the non-placement of some pupils is the result of parents who have moved homes recently or failed to enrol their children timeously.
“It is well known by now that every year the WCED has a certain percentage of late enrolments. Some are pupils from within the province whose parents have either moved recently or have not yet enrolled their children, despite repeated calls by the MEC and the department to do so early last year,” Shelver said.
About 20 000 pupils from outside the province enrol at local schools each year.
While Manuel acknowledged cross-border transfers may also be part of the problem, he commended statistician-general Pali Lehohla for keeping the public up to date with movement statistics the department could use to plan better.
Manuel said the Western Cape was not in as dire a situation as Gauteng where some 58 000 children could not be accommodated.
SA Democratic Teachers Union Western Cape secretary Jonavon Rustin said Sadtu was concerned about the number of pupils who have not yet been placed in schools.
“We have an understanding that a lot of parents don’t register their children in time to avoid this, and we also acknowledge that the schools don’t inform parents about what they need to do,” he said.
Shelver said once areas, grades and ages of pupils were determined, schools could be identified where pupils could be accommodated, or new mobile classrooms could be ordered.
“We do not know where pupils are going to go, and cannot move these classrooms until such time as we know where they are needed.”
There is nothing like the first few days for a child at school as it will determine if they are part of school or not, because if they join late they will always be on the outside,” Manuel said.
Rustin said he was aware of problems in Delft, Mitchells Plain, Athlone, Lwandle in Strand and Khayelitsha.
It’s a big challenge for teachers when schools take on a big number of pupils, Rustin said, and when the school is overcrowded it is the teachers who suffer most.
He urged the department to make an assessment and provide teachers needed within the next few days.