Cape Town - Parents who need to enrol their children in new schools next year will have to hurry as the deadline for applications has now been moved forward.
While the province had two phases for enrolment in the past, Education MEC Debbie Schäfer announced on Tuesday that there would be only one deadline this year – June 30 – by which parents would have to submit applications for 2016.
Last year, the second round of enrolments closed in September but at the beginning of this year some schools still had to deal with long queues of late enrolments.
Schäfer said there had been a significant number of parents who only started enrolling their children in the latter part of the year and this placed a “massive burden” on officials at the start of the academic year and disrupted teaching and learning time.
She said the earlier deadline would make it possible for schools and the department to make the necessary arrangements for next year, including determining where additional classrooms, teachers, textbooks and furniture would be needed.
At the end of last year and early this year, for example, the department deployed 200 mobile classrooms in rapidly growing communities to accommodate additional children in these areas more easily.
Schäfer said that even with this additional planning in place, the department would always face unexpected growth in various areas or certain grades that it couldn’t plan for.
“Therefore, it is imperative that as many learners are enrolled timeously so that we can minimise this risk as much as possible.”
She said many popular schools were already full and had waiting lists.
Schools would let parents know in writing whether they could accommodate their children and parents had to accept the place in writing.
“We urge parents not to wait for the written offer before applying to another school.”
The department has started a campaign in several areas to encourage parents to enrol their children early.
Cape Argus