Unions: school placements worrying
AS inland schools open their doors for learning this week, teachers’ unions are questioning whether the rotational timetable for secondary schools will continue and are concerned about school placements.
National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of SA (Naptosa) executive director Basil Manuel said schools were largely ready to open for the 2022 academic year. However there was a question mark on whether schools were Covid-19 ready.
“One of our concerns is that there seems to be a relaxation and people seem to think the pandemic is over but it’s not over,” Manuel said. He added that the provincial government could take advantage of that and not comply as they should.
He added that the union was also concerned about the problem of placements and enrolment in schools.
The Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) said on Friday there were 1 465 applicants who remained unplaced. The department added that there were more than 17 000 applicants who did not submit all the necessary supporting documents, deeming their applications unsuccessful.
“The number has been broken up to give the impression that there aren’t so many applicants but for one mother who doesn’t have a place for her child on the first day, it’s a problem,” Manuel said.
He said there should be better planning for school placements; the departments ran into similar problems every year.
One parent on social media said: “We are really not satisfied with the placement. You say it’s finalised, you placed our kids in the schools we have not applied to. You should have left the schools to take kids’ applications.”
Another parent said: “I received a message saying placement is final. But when we went to collect the stationery (the) child’s name was not on the list. Bear in mind we have paid the school fees and bought school uniforms.”
The DA’s Khume Ramulifho said it was extremely regrettable that parents were not sure whether their children would be placed, so they were unable to buy uniforms, arrange transport where needed and buy stationery.
“The lack of communication is causing anxiety and frustration among parents who applied on time but are still uncertain as to whether their children have a space or not. The department must place all children before Wednesday (tomorrow),” Ramulifho said.
GDE spokesperson Steve Mabona said that the Ekurhuleni East area with Tembisa and Olifantsfontein was where the department had a huge number of learners who needed to be accommodated in terms of enrolment, as well as Gauteng East and Johannesburg Central.
“We have identified space in the form of mobile units to accommodate learners while we are in the process of building classrooms. This will kickstart because we are already transferring funds to those schools,” Mabona said.
The department added that the late registration process would commence tomorrow but only schools with capacity would be available on the online registration system.