Staff Reporter.
Gauteng department of education hopes to place 4,712 pupils in schools for the 2022 academic year.
Despite postponing the placement of pupils to Friday from 1 December, the department was still battling to place pupils.
Online admissions for Grade 1 and Grade 8 in Gauteng began in September and the department received over 73,000 applications within four hours of going live online.
In a statement on Friday, Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi said the department would now pour in millions to build additional classrooms to accommodate unplaced pupils.
The administrative process has been started to transfer R240 million to build 229 classrooms in identified primary schools and 270 classrooms in high schools within the next two weeks.
All classrooms are turnkey, consisting of school furniture and related resources.
He said in addition, 132 mobile classrooms would be supplied to some schools to augment classroom shortages.
“We remain solidly hopeful that in the next 24 hours, we will complete this mammoth task. It’s not easy, but we are spending sleepless nights to conclude this mandate. We fully understand your anxiety; however, we need to balance many factors,” he said.