Gauteng has a school problem

Despite having the second-highest number of learners in the country, Gauteng is lagging behind other provinces regarding the number of schools built.

According to data from The Outlier, which analysed provincial education departments’ annual reports, Gauteng has built 48 public schools since the start of the 2015/16 financial year.

This ranks it fourth in the country, behind the Western Cape, which has built 97 schools, the Eastern Cape, which has 74 new schools, and KwaZulu-Natal, which has 58.

The Northern Cape has built the fewest schools, 16, followed by Limpopo, 22, Mpumalanga, 29, the Free State, 38, and the North West, 46.

However, when comparing the number of learners per province relative to the number of schools, the Northern Cape’s 16 new schools appear sufficient.

By 2024, the province had 301,911 learners and 543 schools, an average of 556 learners per school. Learners also only grew by 6% over the period.

Similarly, KwaZulu-Natal’s 58 new schools brought its tally to 5,753, accommodating its 2.8 million learners at roughly 486 per school.

Gauteng has seen the number of learners grow by over 385,000 to 2.33 million. There are only 2,068 schools to accommodate them.

This means that the average number of learners in each public school in the province sits at 1,112 learners.

In a briefing to Parliament earlier in the year, the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) estimated that building a new school would cost R461 million. However, it indicated no plans to construct new schools during the current financial year.

Despite the lack of new schools, it has built 1,661 classrooms and completed 1,797 maintenance projects over the past five financial years.

Learners pouring in

In its presentation, the GDE pointed to the significant influx of learners from outside the province, which has grown from 90,992 at the start of 2015 to 124,375.

The province reports that the largest portion of new learners comes from foreign countries, with 30,090 arriving from abroad in 2025. This has grown from just over 12,000 in 2015.

Limpopo, on the other hand, is the most significant contributor of South Africa’s provinces to Gauteng’s learner in-migration, with 26,546 school kids arriving in 2025.

This is followed by KwaZulu-Natal, at 23,316, and the Eastern Cape at 14,255.

The Western Cape, on the other hand, has seen the second-highest growth in learner enrollments over the past decade, growing by 18% to 1.21 million.

However, the increase of just over 182,000 learners relative to the 97 schools built seems tolerable at around 1,870 per new school.

This is in contrast to the 385,000 students who ascended upon Gauteng at a rate of around 8,000 learners per school.

While the influx of learners proves a problem in other provinces, the Eastern Cape is struggling with the loss of learners.

Over the past ten years, the Eastern Cape has lost roughly 176,000 learners to migration. As a result of this and urbanisation, several schools in the province have been left underutilised.

It’s worth noting that the Eastern Cape has closed more schools than it has built over the period. However, the total number of learners has decreased by 176,000.

To solve this, the Eastern Cape Department of Education has implemented a rationalisation project to mitigate the challenge of these migration patterns.

“Migration from the Eastern Cape to other provinces and migration from rural to urban centres led to the declining number of learners in rural schools,” it says.

“As a result, the Eastern Cape province has under-utilised rural schools that are costly to maintain and overcrowded urban schools.”

Thus, the province allocates resources more effectively by rationing, closing, and merging schools.