Frustration grows as learners in city still await placement at schools
Learners who have not been placed have already missed well over two weeks of lessons since schools opened for the 2023 academic year, on January 11.
POLOKWANE – Learner placement in Polokwane schools has once again put the Education Department’s slow response to infrastructure development in the spotlight.
With many parents still awaiting placement for their children, the question that arises year after year is when the department will prioritise building more schools to facilitate the growing number of learners in and around the city.
Annually, the 10th school day is used as measure for learners numbers across schools, but by January 27, departmental media liaison officer, Mike Maringa said the process was still ongoing.
The situation of unplaced learners has, as in previous years, seen frustrated parents camp outside the department’s Polokwane circuit offices in dire frustration on Wednesday and Thursday last week, eventually accepting that their children would be placed in available schools, and not necessarily their schools of choice.
Learners who have not been placed have already missed well over two weeks of lessons since schools opened for the 2023 academic year, on January 11.
Many who had applied timeously in 2022, were subsequently rejected for various reasons including not meeting the feeder zone criteria.
After spending consistent days at the then set venue for placement, (Greenside Primary School), their appeals were also set aside, with the department stating the same reason.
Maringa confirmed to Polokwane Observer that sufficient space to contain the candidates at Good Hope Primary and Westenburg Secondary School was available, however, because of reasons known to parents and guardians; they still did not seem satisfied by the options provided to them. In the midst of the placement chaos, parents had resorted to electing a representative who liaised openly with the department about possible solutions for their children to still be absorbed in their schools of choice.
Fhulufhelo Mudau said parents opt for other schools than those suggested.
“We take our children to paying public schools as the quality of their activities is better than those in other public schools. We proposed to the department to let the children squeeze into those classes while plans are being made for mobile classrooms. It is clear that the city is in need of more schools because the city is growing,” he explained.
Maringa said the process of matching the ratio of the city’s learner population to the number of schools is intricate, however still ongoing.
“We hope that National Treasury increases our budget so that we focus a reasonable amount of money on building more public schools and extending those that have a current small threshold. We do acknowledge that most schools already have more learners that they can facilitate,” he explained.
