Despite scepticism from the Democratic Alliance and the New National Party, the Gauteng education department said it was confident that it would be able to accommodate all new pupils registering this year.
”Parents still seeking late admissions will not be turned away,” said Thebe Mohatle, departmental spokesperson.
The department had processed 68 800 new applications since August 2003, and now predicted the need for 550 more teachers and 629 more classrooms in the province, said Mohatle.
He declined to comment on predictions by the NNP and the DP that more unexpected pupils — up to 80 000 more — might turn up during the first few days of the school term.
”We would anticipate that there would be further applications”, he said, but did not hazard a guess as to numbers.
”They are entitled to their own perceptions”, he said of the NNP.
He said the department was planning to reconcile its figures after ten days, and would then be in a better position to arrange for further resources.
”The public must realise that we are dealing with a whole spectrum of socio-economic conditions, we can’t control the movement of people”.
Gauteng is the destination for many people looking for jobs and a better life, and has experienced a related rise in the numbers of new pupils every year.
Last year 62 000 unexpected new pupils arrived in the first week of term and had to be put on waiting lists, said Juli Kilian, NNP education spokesperson.
”This trend of unexpected new enrolments for which the system is not geared exacerbates classroom shortages in the province”, she said.
She said the unexpected enrolements could be planned for by the department if it had proper models of pupil movements.
Mohatle recognised the many challenges which his department faced. He said the anticipated cost of accommodating new pupils could reach R44-million, but with the support of provincial government ”no learner will be out of school due to the cost”.
While teachers and classrooms were likely to be a headache for the department this year, textbook and stationary shortages were ”a problem of the past”, said Mohatle.
He said they had delivered all the stationary that schools required, and 98% of the text books to all section 20 and section 21 schools.
The department was also ready to provide more books if there was further demand from pupils not yet registered, he said.
Strategies for dealing with the classroom shortage were more makeshift.
Department CEO, MaLlele PeTje described various ”emergency mechanisms”, including the provision of mobile classrooms in overcrowded schools, fast-tracking the process of registering and building new schools, as well as bussing pupils to schools that could accommodate them.
However, the DA’s David Quail said bussing pupils to empty schools was fruitless, a newspaper reported on Tuesday. Quail said the schools were empty for a reason — pupils had transferred to schools that they perceived to be better.
The NNP agreed: ”Ultimately, this problem would resolve itself once the education standards in all public schools have improved and are actually on par”, said Kilian. – Sapa