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Inner-City Gazette
Issue 17 - 2019
Email : info@inner-city-gazette.co.za
inner_gazette
072 824 3014
2 - 9 May 2019
Website : www.inner-city-gazette.com Inner City Gazette
Distributed free to households, churches, schools, clinics, government departments, police stations, libraries and businesses in Bellevue • Berea • Bertrams • Braamfontein • City and Suburban • City West • Crown Gardens • Doornfontein • Fairview • Fordsburg • Hillbrow • Jeppestown • Jules • Johannesburg Inner City • Kensington • Lorentzville • Malvern • Marshallstown • New Doornfontein • Newtown • North Doornfontein • Park Meadows • Rosettenville • Selby • Troyeville • Turffontein • Village Main and Yeoville .
Next year’s online school placement application starts ‘Admissions
Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi
‘School placement for 2020 will be done in line with the new admission regulations that seek to ensure equitable access to all learners regardless of class, race or language’
Online Application System now accommodate 50 000 simultaneous users’
Johannesburg - The Gauteng Education Department has announced that online applications for the placement of Grade 1 and 8 learners for the 2020 academic year will go live on 13 May. Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi said the school placement for 2020 will be done in line with the new admission regulations that seek to ensure equitable access to all learners regardless of class, race or language. “The regulations also define new feeder zones that aim to overcome the apartheid geography. Access to public schools has been a hotly contested process over the past 25 years of our new democracy. There has been a tension to open all public schools on the one hand, and attempts to reserve certain schools for the privileged on the other hand,” Lesufi said. He added that apartheid left a legacy of a deeply flawed, fragmented and unequal education system. “The post-apartheid state made serious strides to build a unified, non-racial and non-sexist education
system and to redistribute resources to ensure equitable access to quality education across the public-school system. The new admission regulations are a further attempt to eliminate the spatial geography of apartheid, and ensure fair, equitable access to all public schools in Gauteng,” Lesufi said. He added that parents seek the best school for their children and given the past, the perception is that former Model C schools are synonymous with quality and township or rural schools are of poor quality. “While this is understandable, the investment that the government has made over the past 25 years has resulted in improved quality in schools in townships. Therefore, I urge parents to give themselves time to evaluate the schools closest to where they live to ascertain the performance of the institution,” Lesufi said. The MEC explained that the Admissions Online Application System now accommodate 50 000 simultaneous users.
“Parents are urged to apply online and on time. Applying on time makes it possible to obtain a space in a public school,” Lesufi said. To lodge applications parents may use the www.gdeadmissions.gov.za, website to log their applications. The deadline is set for 15 July, Lesufi said. He also said placement of learners by the department will take place between 27 August and 20 September. “Parents and applicants will receive SMS notification of successful and unsuccessful application to the school. They have an obligation to accept or reject the placement offer within seven days. If a parent fails to accept or reject the offer within the given period, such a parent will forfeit the offer and it will be given to the next person on the queue. Spaces in schools are not unlimited and are subject to how many learners currently in the school progress to the next grade. As such, placement will be conducted on a first-come-first-serve basis,” Lesufi said.