
Mamelodi-based members of MK Party have advised parents who are looking for placement for their children at school to go back to the schools where they originally registered for their placement, and demand admission for them.
MK Party issued this advice after desperate parents converged at the local Department of Basic Education headquarters commonly known as Teachers Centre in Mamelodi East.
MK Party Region Convener Kosabo Dube told Tshwane Talks that he and his fellow MK Party members have been coming to the Teachers Centre every day since Monday to plead with the Department of Basic Education to abandon the present system that is being used for parents seeking late placements for their children at any school.
“This system is inhumane as parents have to stand in long queues; thirsty and hungry under the scorching sun and rainy conditions, and many of them have left their children unattended at home as they can’t bring them along, so this exposes those children to all sorts of danger,” said Dube.
“Since 2023 we have been advising the Department of Basic Education to set up at least fifty tables which will be occupied by volunteers who will help the Department of Basic Education officials with the registration process of their kids so as to avoid overcrowding here at the Teachers Centre,” he said.
“Another thing is that we want the DBE to set up at least 100 mobile toilets so that the many parents who are gathered here would have a place to relieve themselves in a dignified manner when nature calls,” he said.
“We have appealed to the Department of Basic Education to arrange water bottles and a health facility tent to save lives in case emergency situations arise, here, but are our pleas have fallen on deaf ears in this regard,” said Dube earnestly.
He said he has phoned local Education district director Andries Nkadimeng to come and see for himself the chaotic and life-threatening situation that is unfolding at the Teachers Centre but the latter has ignored their calls.
He said the registration process must take place under safe conditions at the premises of various schools where parents wish to place their children.
“If school principals insist that there is no space left for the placement of children at their schools, then such a school must resort to using satellite facilities like local churches and halls to accommodate learners who have not yet been admitted,” he said.
“Make use of churches; convert them into schools during the week and they shall revert into churches again on Sundays,” enthused Dube.
“As I speak to you now, a black child is out in the street while children of other races are in class and learning,” he lamented.
One of the parents who converged at the Teachers Centre Marcia Chaboyo, admitted that she didn’t heed the call by the Department of Basic Education to apply for her child’s placement online.
Chaboyo was at the Teachers Centre to find placement for her Grade 1 child at Mveledzo Primary School.
“The Teachers Centre is so full of desperate parents today because all of us here took the issue of registering our children online for granted,” said Chaboyo.
Be that as it may, other desperate parents who were at the Teachers Centre disagreed with Chaboyo vehemently.
This as they opine that the online application system has failed them and is therefore useless.
One disagreeable parent said the following:
“We applied for placement as early as June last year but it’s all the same because our children have not been placed in school, we were told that SMSes will be sent to us but that has never happened, so let the online application system be abolished and the old system of registering children for placement at schools be reintroduced to avoid the fights and the drama that we see every year during this period.”
Another parent said the following:
“Right now, my child is at home while her peers are in school, so I say the online application system has failed my child and it is of no purpose to many of us who are gathered here at the Teachers Centre today.”
Yet another parent said the following:
“Whether you apply online early or later there is no difference, we want the old system whereby we will go directly to schools and apply for the enrollment of our children.”
She said the online application system is costly as that she has to spend lots of money on data.
She wished for a situation whereby she would sit face to face with the principal or the administrative staff during the registration process of her child.
It has emerged that parents who registered for the placement of their kids today (Wednesday) at the Teachers Centre will only be contacted after ten days with information regarding where their children would be allocated “space.”
This scenario has left the parents worried because they believe that ten days is a long time and that their children will be left behind and miss out on lessons.