Waiting game: Parents queue to register their children at Lufhereng Secondary School in Soweto. Last-minute applications left the education department scurrying to find places for learners.
An influx of more than 20 000 learners into the Western Cape from other provinces has forced the provincial education department to hold discussions with the national treasury to find a way of funding the increased enrolment.
Over the past five years, the Western Cape government says it has forked out about R1.85‑billion to fund an additional 154 891 learners, mostly hailing from the Eastern Cape.
As learners across the country returned to school this week, it emerged that the Western Cape and Gauteng education departments collectively register about 80 000 new pupils from outside their provinces each year.
One of the key issues, according to Western Cape education MEC Debbie Schäfer, is the government’s reliance on old data in calculating how much funding it should give the provinces.
“Treasury should stop relying on outdated information such as the 2011 census data,” she said.
Schäfer told the Mail & Guardian that it costs the government on average R12 000 a year to educate a learner.
Meanwhile, anxious parents have been queuing at education district offices across Gauteng this week in a bid to secure places in schools for their children — despite many of them having applied online last year.
By Tuesday, the provincial education department had placed 18 000 of these children in schools, reducing the number who were yet to be placed to 40 000.
Gauteng education MEC Panyaza Lesufi said he was among the thousands of parents who had to wake up early last year to join the line to apply for admission for his child. “This was time-consuming and hence the idea to initiate the online registration.”
Despite a wave of criticism against the online application system, Lesufi was adamant that it had been successful, adding: “We now know the real numbers and areas that need our immediate attention in terms of growth.”
A random survey by the M&G found that some primary schools in Pretoria were crammed, with up to 48 learners in some grade one classes.
Schools in southern and eastern Johannesburg as well as Midrand and northern Pretoria were completely full, according to the Gauteng education department.
It blamed the failure to place all learners on the shortage of schools and late applications by some parents.
Learners yet to be placed in schools in other provinces include:
• Western Cape: 18 484;
• Limpopo: 300 in Polokwane;
• Northern Cape: 579 in the Frances Baard and John Taolo Gaetsewe education districts; and
• KwaZulu-Natal: fewer than 1 000.
KwaZulu-Natal education department spokesperson Muzi Mahlambi confirmed that the province’s learner enrolment was expected to increase by 200 000 this year, from 2.6‑million to 2.8‑million.
He said that at least 98% of learners seeking enrolment in the province had been placed in schools.
Schäfer said that she had indicated to Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan during a video conference call last year that the Western Cape was receiving a high number of learners from outside the province but was not receiving the money to finance their education.
“He said he’s looking at ways of making the equitable share more responsive to the needs of the province,” she said.
Government funding to provinces is done in terms of the Division of Revenue Act and is known as the equitable share.
Schäfer said the equitable share-funding formula, which is used to determine how much funding should be allocated, is based on the outdated 2011 census figures and the school’s previous year’s 10-day snap survey of learner enrolment.
Meanwhile, her department received 70 appeals from parents whose children had been refused admission at particular schools. With the exception of four appeals that the department was still considering, the remaining 66 children had all been placed at schools.
The Northern Cape received 187 appeals from parents, of which 67 children had been placed by the end of last year.