Johannesburg - The Gauteng education department on Monday appealed to parents who have received offers of school places for their children to "respond immediately".
As many as 71,275 parents have not yet responded to offers of placement.
Warning that failure to respond could result in these parents "forfeiting their spot in the queue", the department said in addition the lack of response was causing serious delays on the system.
The department said it sent SMS notification to remind parents to respond to the offers of placement.
Since the placement period started three weeks ago on the July 24, 117,081 learners have been placed, 65,595 in Grade 1 and 51,486 in Grade 8. The placement of learners at schools will close on October 20.
The department said it had received 285,834 applications by the closing date 12 June 2017, of which 157,369 were for Grade 1 and 128,465 is for Grade 8.
"All schools, district offices and head office are able to assist parents to accept offers of placement," said the department adding: "Parents, who have not received any response thus far, must contact the district office".
Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi said: “Once more, we thank the people of Gauteng for the overwhelming response to the online admissions. The early processing of admissions means that learning and teaching can commence on the first day of the 2018 academic calendar. The cooperation of parents will be highly appreciated”.