Cape Town - As the Western Cape Department of Education (WCED) announced that much progress had been made in the placement of Grade 1 and 8 learners, scores of parents and guardians gathered at the Western Cape Legislature seeking placement, among answers to other queries.
On Friday, the standing committee on education was briefed by the WCED on the 2023 admissions process, the status of school readiness for 2023, and the 2022 National Senior Certificate (NSC) results and pass rate.
During his introductory remarks, Education MEC David Maynier said significant progress had been made, with more than 600 classrooms built as part of its rapid school build programme, and 98.8% of Grade 1 and 8 pupils placed, to date.
“But despite that significant progress, the system is still under significant pressure, especially as a result of over 3 000 extremely late applications, and by that I mean applications that were received after January 1, 2023, and there are more extremely late applications flooding in.”
The WCED deputy director-general: curriculum, Haroon Mahomed, said the number of NSC candidates registered were 62 350, with 60 338 writing. The number of candidates who passed were 49 102, with an 81.4% pass rate for 2022.
There was a decrease in access to a Bachelor’s degree pass from 45.3% in 2022 to 42.7% in 2023.
Seventy out of 457 schools achieved a 100% pass rate, and 92 schools maintained a pass rate of 95% and above for the past five years (2018-2022). Thirty-one schools had a pass rate lower than 60%.
Mathematical performance declined by 5%, with participation cited as an ongoing challenge.
WCED head Brent Walters said the system increased by an average of 17 901 pupils a year, which was expected to continue until 2030.
By January 31, 662 classrooms were completed for the 2023 school year, and 180 were being completed. Five schools were completed in the rapid build project.
Walters said 332 Grade 1 pupils and 1 144 Grade 8 pupils were being placed. These included applications received timeously, received late, and extremely late this year.
Many of the 1.2% of unplaced pupils were uncontactable, untraceable, or applied late.
“We will be able to offer a place for every Grade 1 and Grade 8. The difficulty we have in the system is that parents are not happy with the place we offer because they’ve got their sights on another school,” Walters said.
Extremely late applications received were 3 391, with 2 066 resolved and 1 325 being placed.
Some of the challenges with placing late applicants included requiring additional classrooms, teachers, transport, a new subject or language stream, and specialised needs.
The department said it had seen 68 people gathered at the building, 10 of which had been new applications, and 58 follow-ups on placements, with most not aware they had placement.