Thousands of students in South Africa’s richest province left unplaced as start of school year looms

With just one week before the 2026 school year begin, the Gauteng Department of Education has admitted that 4,858 learners in Grade 1 and Grade 8 have not yet been placed.

In an interview with eNCA on Monday, Gauteng Education spokesperson Steve Mabona said that the department has placed over 358,000 learners in Grade 1 and Grade 8 for the 2026 school year. 

In the Department’s latest update on 6 January, the number of unplaced students stands at 4,858. The school year begins on Wednesday, 14 January.

Mabona said the areas most affected by overcrowding, preventing student placements, are Ekurheleni North and South, and Johannesburg East.

The almost 5,000 figure shows little improvement from the department’s previous update on 22 December, which claimed that 5,464 students remained unplaced.

Education MEC Matome Chiloane insists that steady progress is being made and that the department continues to release placement and transfer offers daily.

Mabona said, however, that the department has opened a channel for late applications and received 11,183 late applicants, adding to the pressure.

Many parents have criticised the department’s online application system, calling for it to be reviewed or scrapped altogether. 

The spokesperson asserts that the system is functioning well, having reached its 11th year of operation. 

“Those who are happy about the system will not say anything. They will not advocate for you if they are happy. Then you have a few that are unhappy. They will then make calls that the system is not working. We will always have this,” he said. 

He said that concerned parents should rather be asking how the department plans to manage the overwhelming number of students that need to be accommodated. “That is a real question.”

“We are making interventions. We are building schools in the areas that are affected, but we acknowledge that the pace is not acceptable. We need to build more,” he said. 

Democratic Alliance (DA) Gauteng Shadow MEC for Education Sergio Isa Dos Santos called on the department to finalise the application process and provide transparency about how the placement process works.

“While MEC Chiloane continues to assure parents that progress is being made, many families remain deeply frustrated by the lack of transparency,” he said. 

A need for more schools

As thousands are struggling to get their children placed in schools, Dos Santos adds that “parents report children being placed at schools far from home, often not of their choice.”

“This creates unnecessary financial, emotional and logistical burdens at the very start of the school year.”

Data compiled by The Outlier revealed that the province has only built 48 public schools since the start of the 2015/16 financial year, which is less than half the number built by the Western Cape (97).

The DA blames the Gauteng Education Department for starting the application process too late.

This is the second year that the DA has criticised the timing of the application process, having opened the application portal in July. 

Anti-immigrant group Operation Dudula has taken the opportunity to assert that the schooling system is overwhelmed with applications because it prioritises foreign nationals over South African learners. 

Mabona stated categorically that this claim is not true. “We are placing all children who are deserving to be in our schools,” he said. “We don’t prioritise foreigners at the expense of South Africans.”

Nevertheless, when Operation Dudula held a meeting for parents with unplaced children, parents took the opportunity to express their irritation with the system.

One mother told Newzroom Afrika: “I’m just frustrated. The government is failing us, really.”

“This thing of online applications is failing us. Sometimes you don’t have data to do that, so now that means your child doesn’t go to school.”

Another mother said that her child has been in the same school since grade 8 and is now in grade 10. Despite applying on time, she has struggled to place her child every year. 

This year, she said, if her child is not placed in the school they have been attending, “there is no other option,” because she cannot afford the school fees of the next closest school, or transport costs for other schools. 

MEC Chiloane has urged parents and guardians to “remain patient while the department works tirelessly to ensure that every Grade 1 and Grade 8 learner is placed for the 2026 academic year.”