Fed-up parents staged a protest at Nellmapius Ex Primary School in Extension 6 demanding that their kids be admitted and that the principal of the school must stop giving undue preference to children who are foreigners.
“I want my child to be enrolled for Grade R and I have been going through the process of getting him admitted to this school since last year,” said an irate parent.
“We were told back then that we must come again in January 2025 and today when I arrived at the school, I was told that there is no space for my child,” she lamented.
“How come that South African children are told that there is no space but foreign children whose parents are here in the country illegally get admitted?” she asked.
“What is happening here is unfair because foreigners pay bribes to the principal and his staff members,” said another parent.
She said foreigners put money inside the application documents as a bribe and they as South Africans don’t have money to pay bribery.
Yet another parent said the following:
“I registered my kid for admission to Grade 6 at this school in October last year but today I am told that there is no space for her, this is nonsense because I should have been told back then that there is no space for my child at this school.”
An angry Patricia Ramokone told Tshwane Talks that she has been trying to get her child to be admitted to Nellmapius Primary School as it is near her home and that last year, she was told to pay R150 school fees at the FNB, which she did, and was told to bring her child to the school in January 2025 when the schools reopen.
“Now I am told that there is no space for my child at this school and that I must come next week and fetch my refund from the school, enough is enough with this rubbish because at the moment my child is forced to attend Pula-Difate Primary School which is far away from Nellmapius and this costs us a lot in terms of transport money,” fumed Ramokone.
“We fought and got injured during protests for this school to be built so that it can accommodate our children, now it seems like we were fighting for foreigners to get admitted to this school while our children who are South Africans are left out in the cold,” added Ramokone.
“I live right next to the gate of this school, yet my child is refused admission to this school,” said another irate parent.
“I am sick and tired, this is wrong, the same thing happened last year, we are residents of Nellmapius Extension 6 and I demand that my child be admitted grade 7 in this school and foreigners must go,” said yet another irate parent.
“There is bribery going on here between foreigners and staff members of Nellmapius Primary School and I have been trying for two years to register my child at this school and today I am told that the name of my child doesn’t appear in the waiting list,” said an enraged parent Zanele Thubane.
She asserted that the waiting list that has been presented to her today is not the original one wherein she had registered her child and that it has been changed fraudulently.
“Children of foreigners have space in this school but our children are denied admission and my child who is in grade 2 has to catch transport at 6am and return home at 4.30 in the afternoon, so tomorrow we are going to bring our children to this school fully dressed in uniform, they will attend this school like it or not,” said Thubane.
“I don’t have R500 to pay for my child at pre-school and I therefore demand that she be admitted here at this school in grade R,” said a parent known only as Mahlatsi, who emphasised that she is an unemployed single parent of three kids who all need financial support from her.
Disappointed resident Linah Baloyi also echoed sentiments expressed by concerned parents and reiterated that foreign children must make space for South African children at the school or alternatively, the school must bring mobile classrooms to accommodate local Nellmapius children.
An angry resident told Tshwane Talks that her sister removed her kids from Dr Monare Primary School last year and immediately bought the new Nellmapius Primary School uniform after being assured that her children would be admitted to Nellmapius Primary School thus year, only to be told today that there is no space for her children at the school.
Another parent grumbled that a foreigner’s child was admitted right in front of her in the queue but when it was time for her kid to also be admitted she was told there is no space.
“My child was doing grade R in this school but was refused admission to Grade 1, this is really surprising, yet children of foreigners have been admitted,” lamented yet another parent.
It has also emerged that some parents were apparently contacted for admission via cellphone but since some of them had lost their phones, they couldn’t be successfully contacted and their children’s space was given to other learners, including foreign ones.
An irate Saleah Seriti said the following:
“There won’t be classes at Nellmapius Primary School on Wednesday, we are going to shut the school down because we can’t allow a situation whereby foreigners come from far off places and register their kids at the school while our children are refused admission.
“Didn’t Premier Panyaza Lesufi say no South African child must stay at home without attending school or was he fooling us?” fumed Seriti.
The irate parents also called for the abolition of the Department of Basic Education”s online application system as in many cases it leads to children being given space at schools which are very far from way from their homes.
The school’s principal told the protesting parents that there is no space for their kids at Nellmapius Primary School and that he will only be admitting 150 new learners at the school.