Cape Town - The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) has appealed to schools to confirm learner placements for the 2023 school year prior to school closure this week.
On Friday, the WCED said parents and caregivers of successful applicants had until midnight to confirm or withdraw places for the 2023 school year.
On Saturday, the WCED admissions system confirmed all the applications where parents/guardians had not already confirmed, auto-confirming the first successful offer as listed by the parent/guardian on the system.
This particularly applied to learners who had been accepted at more than one school, WCED spokesperson Bronagh Hammond said.
Once a place had been confirmed, all other successful offers were withdrawn. WCED head Brent Walters wrote to schools appealing to them to ensure their admissions teams were ready to review their admission lists today, and to contact as many parents/ guardians before Friday.
“There are many parents/guardians who are understandably anxious about their child not having a confirmed place at a school yet. The school holidays will further delay the confirmation process as schools will be closed. Please let us all help parents/guardians to overcome this anxiety and stress by confirming as many places as possible before June 25, 2022,” Walters said.
The WCED also appealed to parents who had not yet applied for 2023 to do so and call or visit the department’s district offices for assistance. These would be placed on the WCED’s late application list.
Hammond said schools were requested to ensure that administrative staff provided parents/guardians with district admissions officials’ contact numbers and to not simply turn them away.
Foundation for Education and Social Justice Africa deputy chairperson Hendrick Makaneta said there were many obstacles making it difficult to apply on time, particularly the online application system for Grades 1 and 8.
“At times the system is not as userfriendly as it ought to be and some parents can give up easily. Most of the parents, particularly those from townships, are used to the walk-in application process.”
But at the same time, the WCED did not have the capacity to enrol all applicants due to the high influx of learners annually, Makaneta said.
“At times, some of the parents refuse to take up an offer at a school and this further creates a long queue for unplaced learners,” he said.