THE GAUTENG Department of Education was supposed to have its new feeder zones in time for the 2018 application process, but this hasn't been done.
Last year, the Federation of School Governing Bodies took the department to the Constitutional Court over admission regulations. Under the current regulations, a child can attend a school within a 5km radius of their home or parents' work.
In January, Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi said they wanted to increase the radius to 30km in an effort to change school demographics and redraw boundaries.
The court gave the department 12 months to set fresh rules to determine feeder zones.
At the start of the 2017 academic year, Lesufi said the department had asked for a month's extension to submit the proposed feeder zones and that they would be ready when the 2018 application process started. But this hasn't been the case.
Gauteng education spokesperson Oupa Bodibe said: “The department has not published any information on feeder zones as yet. The department is currently busy with the conceptualisation and planning related to the determination of feeder zones. Once these processes have been finalised, consultation will be undertaken with stakeholders.”
The feeder zones are important because they determine which school a learner can apply to.
There are about 2300 primary and high schools in the province and all of them and their school governing bodies have to be consulted before the new regulations are published.
The department has set up district demarcation boards to assist with the consultation.
Bodibe said schools would be consulted once the proposals had been finalised.
Kathy Callaghan of the Governors Alliance said they had not been consulted on the proposed feeder zones. “As far as we know, schools have not been consulted. We will have to wait until next year because it is now too late to implement them.”
Bodibe said that so far, the online application system which was introduced last year had received 318000 applications for Grade 1 and Grade 8.
“However, if we exclude duplications, we have 218106,” he said.