- The next phase of the Western Cape 2025 school admissions project is set to begin this weekend.
- This phase will see the online admission system automatically accept school placements to clear up the thousands of “double-parked” spaces.
- However, the holiday mid-year break is set to bring more delays in the admission process, compounding stress.
Parents in the Western Cape who have yet to confirm successful placement offers for their grade 1 and grade 8 learners should do so before Saturday this week, 15th June, as after this date the Western Cape online admission system will automatically begin confirming placements.
It will confirm the highest-ranked choice of school in terms of successful applications for the two grades. Parents have until 14th June to confirm or decline places, as many successful applications receive placement offers from multiple schools.
Unfortunately, this also meant that thousands of learners received unsuccessful placements, and often multiple unsuccessful placements adding stress to parents. The admission portal will begin accepting placement offers automatically in order to clear up spaces at schools that were previously held by “double-parked” learners.
Over 30 000 spaces are expected to clear up for grade 8 learners, the Western Cape Department of Education says in a statement, reminding parents to be patient.
A concerned parent reached out to Hypertext earlier this month, telling us that the system that double-parks learners makes no sense since the department already knowns that the province has a shortage of places at government schools.
They were joined by stressed parents on social media, who were simply told by department spokesperson to wait for more spaces to clear up. Now according to the latest media statement from the department, more stress is expected in the coming weeks.
“We must, however, remind parents that schools are going on holiday for the mid-year break, and therefore there will be a static period for placement,” it shared.
“While the wait is stressful, there will be many shifts within the system. We usually see a lot of activity once schools return for the third term, with offers of placement being made to parents according to their waiting list.”
It added that it will assist parents who still have no places for their children after this next phase later this year.
Due to budgetary constraints and overfilled public schools, the Western Cape launched its online school admissions earlier in the year than other provinces in the hopes of making enough headway to support parents who can’t place their children.
“We are fighting hard to expand the number of places available at schools in the Western Cape,” the department said last year.
In 2023, Western Cape set out to build nine new schools and aimed to deliver 608 additional classrooms to accommodate learners despite budget cuts.
