Education

My department has informed me of the following:

1. Schools follow up on learner absenteeism on a regular basis but the lack of parental support in some communities makes this a very difficult task. School Safety Fieldworkers in our districts continuously follow up on learner truancy, meeting parents and mediating between schools, parents and learners to ensure re-integration into schools.

          Retaining learners across the grades involves several interventions:

• Providing support and remedial action for learners at risk of dropping out and following up with those who have stopped attending school to encourage them to return;
• Each district annually develops an improvement plan where large numbers of learners are not performing academically at the required levels.  These plans contain a number of actions that relate to the holistic support of the child, for example: extra tuition, school safety and offering of assessment accommodations.
• Improving the system in the Foundation Phase – reading, writing and mathematics skills – so that learners progress comfortably and keep up with the curriculum (learners who do not read, write and calculate at the required levels are more susceptible to dropping out at a later stage);
• Identifying learners who would be more suited to a technical and vocational stream than an academic stream, and related to this, the expansion of learning opportunities in those fields;
• Supporting and encouraging pregnant learners both during and after their pregnancy, so that they do not drop out because of being pregnant; and
• Providing behavioural programmes, psychological support and seeking the assistance of social welfare and support networks for learners who are in homes that are not healthy and happy environments.

1. Please see above.

District and Head Office officials have worked tirelessly to place learners in schools.

The WCED had placed 50 000 more learners by the end of 2022 in comparison to the same period the previous year.

As of 24 February 2023, we have resolved 121 806, or 99.6%, of the unique Grade 1 and Grade 8 placement applications for the 2023 school year, and are in the process of placing 487, or 0.4%, of the Grade 1 and Grade 8 learners for the 2023 school year.

It is important to note that the overwhelming majority of the cases where placement is still in progress are new applicants who arrived this year.

Applications fall into three groups:

• Applications received on time before the deadline;
• Late applications received after the deadline but before the end of 2022; and
• Extremely late applications received since the start of this year.

On-time applicants:

Placement is in progress for just 19 Grade 1 and Grade 8 learners for whom applications were received on time. The parents of these learners are either uncontactable or have rejected the offer of placement.

Late applicants (received in 2022):

Placement is in progress for 42 of the Grade 1 and Grade 8 learners for whom applications were received after the deadline for applications passed, but before the end of 2022. The majority of these were received in November and December 2022.

These learners are being prioritised at present. Unfortunately, some of the parents of these learners are also unreachable, even when we have places to offer for their children.

Extremely late applicants (received in 2023):

We have received new, extremely late applications for 4 045 Grade 1 and Grade 8 learners since 1 January 2023 for the 2023 school year, including 926 in the past month.

The challenge with late applications is that we do not know

• how many late applications we will receive,
• where the extremely late placement will be required,
• the grades, language, and ages of the learners, and
• the specific subjects and specialised needs of the learners.

Placement of learners is therefore not straightforward as it relies on a variety of factors. This has made planning our resource allocation in advance extremely difficult.

Despite this, we have already placed 3 619, or 89.5%, of the Grade 1 and 8 learners for whom extremely late applications were received after 1 January 2023, as a result of forward planning and contingency resources being made available.

Placement is in progress for 426 of the Grade 1 and Grade 8 learners for whom extremely late applications were received after 1 January 2023. Of these, 180 were received since 1 February 2023, and additional applications are arriving daily.

At any given time of the year, we will always have a number of learners whose placement is in progress, because learners do move around the province and country throughout the year.

3. The WCED has a database of Grade 1 and Grade 8 learners that require placement. We are working on that list as described above. The waiting list of schools is only applicable if places open up at that particular school and an unplaced learner is on that list. The WCED does, however, liaise with schools to determine spaces available and encourages placement of learners on our database.

The WCED is currently rolling out an infrastructure programme to provide more place for learners. This programme aims to deliver 842 additional classrooms with at least 26 000 places for learners in the province.

We have now delivered 721 of the 842 classrooms scheduled to be completed by 31 March 2023.

The remaining classrooms are on track for delivery by the scheduled deadline.

Over and above the unprecedented 842 classrooms we committed to, we are deploying additional mobile classrooms to areas where the need for placement is greatest, and to cope with the challenge that extremely late applications pose.

All new classrooms require a teacher. Last year, we announced one of the largest increases in teaching posts we’ve had in years, with the appointment of up to 1 143 additional teachers for the 2023 school year.

1. The 662 classrooms were delivered in December and January 2022. This figure has since increased to 721 classrooms.

The overall target was to provide 26 000 places for the 842 classrooms, however, this is based on a very low learner to teacher ratio of 30:1. The annual school survey is currently underway, following which we will be able to ascertain the numbers of learners in the classrooms.

Transportation is provided to leaners who qualify in terms of the Learner Transport Scheme.

Learner transport, as far as is reasonably practical, will be provided to all registered learners in ordinary public schools in the Western Cape, provided that:

1. they reside in a geographical area that qualifies for learner transport;

2. they reside five kilometres or further away from an ordinary public school;

3. there are ten and more learners to commence a scheme;

4. they do not pass a suitable ordinary public school;

5. there is no public transport at their disposal;

6. they do not receive any transport or hostel bursaries; and

(g) such learner transport is approved by the Head of Department.