GAUTENG Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi annonced on Sunday that parents who applied will be receiving placement offers for Grade 1 and 8 pupils from Monday.
Lesufi addressed the media at Hoërskool Menlopark on Sunday on the placement process for the 2023 Grade 1 and 8 Online Admissions in Gauteng.
Lesufi said there will be no need for a parent to access the system to accept an offer because the child would be placed at the mentioned school.
“Tomorrow we are releasing what we call ‘ happy SMS’s’. A happy SMS means as a parent you are going to get an SMS that says amongst the 764 000 people that have applied for spaces in our schools you were fortunate to be placed so tomorrow we are releasing those SMS’s to all parents,” said Lesufi.
“Placement offers will be released to parents via SMS from 3 October 2022 – 30 November 2022. Placement offers must be accepted within 7 days. When schools reach full capacity, applicants will receive placement offers from schools with available space.”
The placement period runs from 4 October until 30 November.
A total of 764 062 applications were submitted and processed for both Grade 1 and 8.
“There will be no need for a parent/guardian to access the system to accept an offer in that regard, because the child would be placed at the mentioned school.”
Lesufi said the department followed a strict criteria to place pupils.
“Parents and guardians are reminded that the placement offers are based on the following criteria considered in order of priority, home address within the school’s feeder zone, sibling(s), previous school, work address within school’s feeder zone, home address within 30km radius, home address beyond 30km radius. Not at a first come first served basis.”
According to the parents, the Gauteng Department of Education’s (GDE’s) online admission system is not allowing new registrations or logging-in, schools are not appearing, the system doesn’t recognise the feeder zones, and there is an inability to select home language and preferred language, to list a few of the issues.
Lesufi said the demand for space in schools is overwhelming, adding that there are over 1,000 additional classes currently being built in the province.
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