Johannesburg - The ANC Youth League in Johannesburg has warned Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi that it will identify private schools and enrol the thousands of pupils who are unplaced in the province.
In addition, the ANCYL has threatened to force the private schools to send invoices for fees to Lesufi’s office as schools in inland provinces reopen on Wednesday.
”The ANCYL will over the next few days engage with the Congress of South African Students and undergo a process of identifying the learners who do not have access to schools and will be placing them to private schools and instructing the schools to send their invoices to the office of the MEC of Education,” explained the league’s Greater Johannesburg regional conference preparatory committee.
It further called on the Gauteng Department of Education to place pupils who do not have access to schools as a result of the department's failure in private schools until their placement to public schools is finalised.
”The department must cover the school fees and transport costs of these young people because they are victims of a flawed system that was created by the Gauteng Department of Education,” the ANCYL Johannesburg RCPC.
According to the department, its officials are implementing means of providing necessary support to schools to ensure that the 1 465 applicants who remain unplaced are accommodated in due course and have undertaken to deal with the pressure of placement in high-pressure districts by investing in more classrooms.
”We have transferred over R240 million to schools for the construction of classrooms. These funds will enable the construction of 229 classrooms in identified primary schools and 270 classrooms in identified high schools,” the department promised.
It also revealed that 17 000 applicants have been identified who did not submit all the necessary supporting documents to their applied school(s) or upload them on the system during the allocated time.
Such applications are deemed unsuccessful but the system is currently open for parents and guardians to upload and choose available schools, according to the department.
But the ANCYL blamed the failure of the department’s online application system and demanded that it either be scrapped or improved.
The ANCYL has also urged all parents whose children have not been placed in schools to engage its structures and the ANC in Johannesburg.
Political Bureau