The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) says it has found a school for all the learners that have been learning in an open field in Forest Village, Cape Town.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe WCED has been contacting parents over the past week to make offers of placement. Half of the learners have already been placed at schools,\u201d said Education MEC Debbie Sch\u00e4fer.<\/p>\n
However, the department is still struggling to contact some of the parents of the remaining learners, who have provided incorrect contact numbers or whose phones go to voicemail.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe urge the parents of those learners to contact their district to take up the placement offers,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
According to Daily Maverick, the \u201cmakeshift school\u201d started operating o a field next to Forest Village, Eerste River, on 16 February, where about 450 pupils attended. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Sch\u00e4fer said they are working hard to place the remaining learners in the province that are still not placed. \u201cObviously, this remains a concern for us that they are still not in a school,\u201d she stressed. <\/p>\n
According to the MEC, the number has reduced from 13 800 at the beginning of the year to 4 188. <\/p>\n
In a statement released on Tuesday, Sch\u00e4fer said this is not due to a lack of planning or effort on the part of the WCED. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have warned for years of the pressure that we are under\u2026 We are nonetheless doing everything we can to try to accommodate the increase this year as best we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
The WCED said it has appointed additional teachers in areas where demand is growing rapidly, which led to over 1 000 learners being placed in the past week.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a result of our continuing struggle to place learners, we met with the Premier, the Provincial Minister of Finance and Provincial Treasury, to discuss urgent solutions,\u201d the MEC said, adding that the WCED met with Treasury officials last week again to continue the discussion.<\/p>\n
Rosendal House<\/strong><\/p>\n The MEC said the group occupying the Rosendal House property belonging to the Department of Higher Education and Training after their children were not placed in schools has finally granted them access to some information.<\/p>\n However, Sch\u00e4fer said the information was inadequate to successfully place learners. <\/p>\n \u201cWe need proof of which grade they have passed, and the details of their previous school. After the SAHRC met with us about this matter and asked how they could help, we wrote to them on 1 April to request their help in obtaining the full details of the learners.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition, the department said it had a constructive and encouraging engagement with the Public Service Commission (PSC), which is also looking into the matter.<\/p>\n \u201cThe PSC recognised that we have a plan of action to address the immediate problem this year, and the serious long-term constraints the department is facing. We trust that they will investigate education issues across the country, including placement and funding constraints, with a view to making recommendations as to how these challenges can be addressed,\u201d the MEC added.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the MEC said the department has also been hard at work on the catch-up plan for those learners who have been placed late and are also looking into including these learners in the autumn schools where necessary. \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) says it has found a school for all the learners that have been learning in an open field in Forest Village, Cape Town. \u201cThe WCED has been contacting parents over the past week to make offers of placement. Half of the learners have already been placed at schools,\u201d said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-185994","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-sanews","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}