Despite this, the provincial spokesperson, Lehuma Ntuane, said the department has not yet entirely concluded the process as there are still a few learners who need to be placed. The Department had initially said the deadline date for this process was on Monday but later moved it to Wednesday (yesterday) following the numerous challenges that it encountered within this regard.

“As per the number that we had on Monday, there are still pockets of those learners who have not yet been placed, purely because their parents did not show up. So as officials of the Department, we took it upon ourselves to phone those parents who were at our offices on Monday so that the learners may finally be placed so that this process is finalised. I think by the end of today, we’d have concluded placing every learner that we had on our records,” he said hopefully.

The spokesperson had previously said that among the challenges the department faced with the process, was the issue of parents refusing their children’s placement at schools they did not approve of and trying to force the department to place the children at schools of their preference, of which many were already full and were no longer accepting admissions. The department’s deadline for this process was on Monday, then it was later moved to Wednesday (yesterday).

Nthuane said while the majority of learners have already been placed in schools in the province, a small number still remain without schools. This number was made up of learners whose parents did not apply to schools in time for them, as well as those whose parents recently migrated to the province. Placements mainly needed to be made in the Frances Baard District which covers the capital city, Kimberley, as well as those in the John Taolo Gaetsewe District, which is home to Kuruman.

The Department made arrangements to place grade 8 learners in about four high schools in the Frances Baard District, while four town-based schools will accommodate the remainder. Schools in the province reopened last week Wednesday and Nthuane said the aim is to get these learners settled into school as soon as possible so they do not have to miss out on any school work.

OFM News