Northern Cape parents urged to apply for 2021 school year ahead of Wednesday deadline
PARENTS in the Northern Cape have until Wednesday to register their children for online admissions for the 2021 academic school year as the closing date is September 30.
The spokesperson for the Northern Cape Department of Education, Geoffrey van der Merwe, on Monday encouraged parents and legal guardians who haven’t applied yet to register to secure space at a public ordinary school.
“All applications received after September 30 will be classified as late applications and will be considered based on the availability of school space,” said Van der Merwe.
He also advised parents to apply to more than one school.
“The online admission system allows for a learner to apply to a maximum of five schools for the 2021 school academic year. We have noticed, according to the data that we received from the online admission system, that most parents applied to only one school, which may pose challenges in terms of the placement when the application is regarded as unsuccessful.”
Van der Merwe stated that all admission applications would be considered and recommended as successful and unsuccessful applications in the following order:
* If the applicant already has a sibling attending the school of application (sibling means a learner who has at least one parent who is also the parent of the learner already attending that school and he or she resides in the same household as that child already attending the school);
* If applicant learner(s) do have parent/guardian working (an employee) at the school applied to;
* If the place of residence of the applicant learner(s) is in the same suburb with the school applied to;
* If the place of residence (residential suburb) of the applicant learner(s) is adjacent (immediately next to) to the suburbs of the school applied to;
* If places remain after all the above-mentioned applicants have been offered places, other applicants, in the order of the position of the applicant should be recommended.
Van der Merwe indicated that the department had registered a total of 32,075 successful applications so far for Grade R, Grade 1 and Grade 8.
“We are likely to see a sharp increase in the number of applications over the next two days as parents will be rushing to complete their 2021 learner admission applications. The online admission system has proven to be both efficient and effective, whilst handling the volume of applications very well,” said Van der Merwe.
