Department of Education failing pupils

The DA-led Western Cape has already received almost 60000 online school placement applications, while working hard to build new classrooms through its rapid school building programme.

Yet here in KwaZulu-Natal, I am still trying to get a pupil placed in a school.

Confirmation from a parent that the pupil is still sitting at home due to inaction from the province’s Department of Education (DoE) is simply devastating for this young person.

A term of schooling has already been lost, simply because the resolve to place pupils first is lacking. The adage that one swallow does not make a summer is true and an entire case against MEC Mbali Frazer and her department cannot hinge on one pupil. However, one child disadvantaged in any way is one too many.

The DA has for years advised that, at the very least, the piloting of online placements in KZN schools should take place within a single district. While there was commitment to the idea, the reality, yet again, is a dearth of political leadership to ensure that every child is placed in a classroom and no learning opportunity is lost.

Every year, my office is inundated with numerous placement queries for various reasons.

Some parents simply make no effort to start the application process early. In other instances, schools bizarrely overlook children living 100 metres away, giving preference to others who live many kilometres away.

Among the very early changes that the DA will make when it governs KZN is to pilot online pupil placements and begin modelling the Western Cape rapid school building programme, adding brick and mortar classrooms to schools that desperately need them.