Grades 1 and 8 placements in Gauteng schools start on 1 October

The Gauteng placement of Grade 1 and 8 learners for the 2021 academic year is expected to commence on 1 October.

In a statement on Sunday, Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi said the process is set to get underway after the applications for admission started on 25 June this year.

The placement and admissions processes are scheduled to end on 30 November.

According to Lesufi, the application phase, where parents applied for admission to schools, started on 25 June and ended on 25 July.

The second phase involved schools verifying applications and the documents submitted.

Placement

The third phase involves the placement of learners, who will receive offers of placement from 1 October.

“Parents have seven days to accept the offers. Offers that are not accepted will be forfeited after seven days of receipt,” Lesufi said.

When the online admissions process opened on 25 June, a total of 157,770 applications were made for 70,073 learners.

By the end of the process, 566,591 applications were registered in the Admission Application System for 255,735 learners.

Each learner is allowed to apply to five different schools, which would constitute five different applications.

“These 255,735 (Grade 1: 122,425 and Grade 8: 133,310 ) represent individual learners (unique applicants). These unique applicants must be placed in 2 034 schools that offer Grade 1 and Grade 8 as entry grades,” Lesufi said.

Lesufi, however, added that the total number of early applications is low when compared to previous years.

“There could be various reasons for such low numbers and Covid-19 could be one. Given the low application numbers, the province is projecting high numbers for late applications.

“The number of applications received in the previous years has confirmed a steady learner enrolment growth of approximately 2.5 %.”

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