Scramble for schools, again?

To wake up to the news that the department of basic education has to remind parents to check if schools are registered before they enrol their children leaves me exhausted.

This fiasco, year in and year out, speaks to the lack of due diligence on the part of parents.

On this one, there is no blaming the authorities. Yes, we can place it at their door that there are schools mushrooming as private institutions in an effort to bypass an education system that they have no faith in. But at no point did the government advocate for the placement of children in a school that parents did not verify its legality.

It is February, teachers are preparing their pupils for the base learning for the year. But somewhere sits a Ntando in Ivory Park without a clue as to where he must go to for school tomorrow.

This lack of interest by parents in education does not only speak to the illegally operated schools.

Even with the mere registration of pupils into government schools, parents fail to register their children on time. This is despite the fact that it announced yearly that parents should register their Grades 1 and 8 children.

There is always that choir that will perform in January, singing to the tune that their children have not been placed – ignoring the fact that they did not register on time.

At what point do parents actually take an active role in their children’s future?

How much effort does it require to verify the legal status of schools we send our children to?

Do we not do our research? I am failing to reason how parents can make such a grave error – with their most precious assets.

And now, somewhere in some school, classroom numbers have soared, be it by one extra pupil or by 10. The teacher-pupil ratio has changed, here is a teacher who went to sleep with 30 children in her class, waking up to 35.

A parent’s failure to apply due diligence towards their child’s education has implications on more than just the affected households.

Parents need to start doing their homework because, honestly speaking, their failure to show up affects more than just their house.

This should serve as the perfect example to bolster parents into more actionable presence in their children’s educational affairs. The conversation of placements from private, unregistered schools to public schools that do not recognise the prior learning from the unregistered institution is a repetitive bore.