New tool to help pupils find a school

120111, Cape Town. Parents Queuing at the reception area of Enkululekweni Primary school. This school is full but parents are still trying to fit their kids in. Picture Henk Kruger/Cape Argus. Reporter Ilse Fredericks.

120111, Cape Town. Parents Queuing at the reception area of Enkululekweni Primary school. This school is full but parents are still trying to fit their kids in. Picture Henk Kruger/Cape Argus. Reporter Ilse Fredericks.

Published Aug 22, 2014

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Cape Town - Education officials have a new tool to help schools place children at schools and to deal with late enrolments at the beginning of the academic year.

Education MEC Debbie Schäfer said on Thursday that the new online system, developed by the Western Cape Education Department, would enable officials to determine which pupils had not been placed at schools and point them to schools where there were places.

This week the Cape Argus reported that some schools already had long waiting lists or were oversubscribed for the 2015 academic year.

Schäfer said the system would be able to show officials the number of available places at a school and the number of applications for each grade at school, circuit and district level. Schools would enter pupils’ details and other information, such as whether the application had been successful, on to a centralised database.

“Officials can use the database to generate an online list of learners looking for places. They can also use the system to generate lists of learners accepted at more than one school.”

She said parents of children accepted at more than one school would have until September 26 to decide which school they would send their child to. The available place could then be allocated to another pupil.

Schäfer said the system would automatically generate e-mails to officials to alert them to cases needing attention.

In the past some schools accepted the same pupils, blocking places for other pupils, and officials had to contact schools directly to track down available places.

The department’s Lance Abrahams said the system also helped with planning, including making arrangements for more desks to be provided in areas where pupil numbers were expected to increase.

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Cape Argus

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