Johannesburg - About 60% of all learners who applied for space at Gauteng schools for next year’s academic year have been placed.
Placements for Grade 1 and Grade 8 learners, started at the beginning of the month and will close on November 30. Parents applied for space through the online system.
According to the department, about 135 599 learners have been placed already.
In Grade 1, they have placed 68 634 and 66 965 in Grade 8. The department received 157 770 applications when the online admissions system opened on June 25.
“This translates to 61.01% of learners placed to date. It must be noted that placement is prioritised based on the home address closest to the school within the school feeder zone, pending availability of space.
“Parents are urged to regularly login to the system to check whether placement offers were made. If an offer of placement is available, it must be accepted within seven school days,” MEC Panyaza Lesufi said.
While the department is sorting out the school’s placements, they are also preparing for matric exams that start on Monday, when learners return from a short break.
This will be a tough exam period as learners and teachers had to play catch-up after schools were shut down for a few months because of Covid19. The department said they were confident learners were ready because schools had conducted syllabus revision.
“The Secondary School Intervention Program (SSIP) is the major strategic intervention for progressed, high-risk and high-flyer learners for the 2020 National Senior Certificate.
“Grade 12 learners have been participating in weekend classes from June 20 until they finished their preliminary examination.
“The SSIP residential camps started from October 13-23, and will continue from yesterday to November 1.
“These residential camps ordinarily target about 10 000 learners from underperforming schools from all affected districts. “The last push strategies material have been developed for all the subjects. Electronic material was shared with the schools and was printed for learners,” he said.
The Star