Angry parents, supported by Equal Education and Equal Education Law Centre, protested at the Metro East Education District offices in Kuils River yesterday over learners who remain unplaced – a week after the start of the school year.
As the global community commemorated International Day of Education yesterday, around 100 people protested to highlight the plight of unplaced learners.
Parents from Khayelitsha, Strand and Kraaifontein joined several others facing a similar struggle outside the offices. Learners came in their school uniforms, showing their readiness to start class.
Mom Mavis Mgoqi from Harare, Khayelitsha, says: “There is no school for my child. I’ve got two kids at home.
“One is supposed to go to Grade 11 but there’s no space for her. I applied in March [for Grade 8] online and they said there’s no space. I applied to 13 schools and they said there’s no space.”
Equal Education parents coordinator Daphne Erosi says the online application process has been a long-standing problem and claimed children were turned away as their parents were unable to pay the admission fee, despite having space.
Head of Organising for Equal Education in the Western Cape, Nontsikelelo Dlulani, says: “What we have been doing last week and this week is assisting parents, together with the law centre, to fill in the placement forms, but it’s becoming quite overwhelming because there is no response that is coming from the district.
“Some parents are losing days at work. So we are here to demand the Metro East [district] and the Western Cape Education Department to place learners with immediate effect but we also know that the issue of school admission is also an issue of the education system as a whole.”
Dlulani claims the majority of the applications of the parents were not late and that there have been parents at the district office since September who received no response.
Education MEC David Maynier says they were disappointed and claimed that protesters “forced” their way into the district’s walk-in centre, bringing the work of the officials to a halt, and requiring the police to intervene.
Maynier says: “We respect the right to protest, but this must be done in a lawful manner without disrupting the admissions process.”
Dlulani said: “That’s a blunt lie and I think the district office knows that that is a lie. There were no Equal Education parents that forced themselves inside the district office. No one was hurt and there was nothing that was vandalised. This was a peaceful protest.”
shakirah.thebus@inl.co.za