Gauteng in struggle to enrol all pupils

THE Gauteng Department of Education has been scrambling to enrol all the pupils who were seeking admission in the province, but many are still left with nowhere to go.

Millions of pupils started the 2018 academic year this week when schools officially opened their doors for learning on Wednesday.

But 1 0 - ye a r- o l d Nqobile Mkhwanazi, who is relocating from Soweto to Ormonde, was not one of them.

Her frustrated uncle Andile Njoko told The Saturday Star yesterday, at a walk-in registration centre in Soweto, that the youngster still doesn’t have a school to attend.

This was even though he followed all the enrolment procedures within the deadline.

“We applied for a school for her when the formal online application process started and the child didn’t get any admission from last year,” he said.

“We kept on following up, but the department has been giving us the run-around.”

Mkhwanazi explained that his niece, who passed Grade 4 last year and is meant to start Grade 5, would be leaving her Soweto school to attend one near Ormonde, as she would now be living with him and his family.

He said he applied for a new school as soon as the online application system opened last year.

But the application was denied as Mkhwanazi said the department told him the schools in the area, including those in Mondeor and Meredale, were full.

“This is about the sixth time that we have visited this walk-in centre,” he said.

“When our appli- cation was initially denied last year, they (the department) told us to come in the beginning of the year when the schools were to be reopened.

“We were even here last weekend, when they told us that they would give us a call (about the status of the application) after five days, but that didn’t happen.”

“Now we been told that we should check on January 23 because schools are full.”

Mkhwanazi also complained that the online re gistration system, which was implemented at schools around Gauteng for the second year, was not user-friendly for everyone.

“The system itself is not user-friendly, you can only apply for Grade 1 and 8, it excludes those in the middle grades.”

Another parent whose child was left without a school until the last minute was Edward Thusi.

Yesterday was the first time he managed to get his daughter Asanda, who is starting Grade 8, enrolled at a school.

This was after several visits to the same walk-in education centre in Soweto.

Although the family, who live in Freedom Park, finally managed to secure a spot for the 13-year-old, it wasn’t the school of their choice.

“My daughter has been enrolled at a school in Eldorado Park, which would not have been the first choice for her.”

Gauteng education spokesperson Steve Mabona said they still didn’t have official figures yet as to how many pupils still needed to be enrolled at schools around the province.

“We are still consolidating the figures and we will have an update next week.”

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