Gauteng parents who applied for placement for grade 1 and 8 learners will start receiving offers today. MEC for Education Matome Chiloane announced that parents of 157,407 Grade 1 and 168,457 Grade 8 learners have seven days to accept offers.

MORE THAN 800K APPLICATIONS RECEIVED

Chiloane gave an update yesterday at Bryanston High School on school admissions for next year. He said a total of 828,364 applications for 2025 admission were received. "From these applications, 344,890 were submitted by unique applicants, which are individual parents, guardians, or children. As a result, from the unique applications, 325,858 were complete applications, while 19,032 were incomplete applications," Chiloane said. Chiloane added that the placement window will be open from today until every prospective pupil has been allocated a seat, even if the process extends into 2025. 

PARENTS HAVE SEVEN DAYS TO ACCEPT OFFERS

Chiloane said the department is in the process of finalising and processing the complete applications so that learners can be offered spaces in various schools. "The incomplete ones, we are going to put them aside and we are not going to offer them a space or place them. We will only consider them when we are done with the completed applications. As we get those offers coming in, a parent can accept the offer as final in the system, but parents who choose the option of provisionally accepting, the space allocated for that child will be kept by the system awaiting other offers," he said. Parents and guardians who completed applications will receive placement offers via SMS on the cellphone numbers they provide on their applications. "Parents will have 7 days to accept or decline a transfer placement offer. Applicants who do not accept placement offers within seven school days will be auto placed at the school that made an offer of placement,' Chiloane added.