Johannesburg - The Gauteng Education Department (GDE) has extended the schools admission placement period to November 30.
The admissions application period for the 2020 academic year initially started on May 20 and was supposed to end on October 31, the GDE said in a statement on Sunday.
During this period, a total of 310 350 applications were made for Grade 1 and Grade 8. Of these, 27 563 applicants had not submitted any documents, while 282 787 submitted documents as required.
To date, 234 290 applicants had placed, while 43 797 were unplaced. It was concerning that about 4700 applicants had not yet accepted offers of placement. Parents were urged to accept offers of placement, as these spaces would not be available after a seven-day period.
To date, 411 schools had reached capacity. Most of these schools had already extended their capacity to accommodate as many pupils as possible. Applicants who could not be accommodated at these schools were placed at schools with available space.
Parents should be mindful that the regulated admissions criteria priorised placement in the order of the following categories:
- The applicant’s place of residence is closest to the school within the feeder zone;
- The applicant has a sibling attending the school;
- The place of employment of at least one of the applicant’s parents is within the feeder zone of the school;
- The applicant’s place of residence is within a 30km radius of the school; and
- The applicant’s place of residence is beyond a 30km radius of the school.
"To facilitate a fair placement process, the above criteria is strictly adhered to without fail. Parents should therefore accept placement offered by the department, as these cannot be changed.
"Placement is made daily until all learners have been allocated schools. Applicants who have not received any placement to date are advised to log on to the system to view placement status and/or contact the nearest district office," the department said.