Education Department briefs parliamentarians on state of readiness ahead of 2016 academic year
27 October 2015
The Department of Basic Education has briefed the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education on the state of readiness for the 2016 academic year. The education sector has over the years strengthened its monitoring to ensure an effective start to the academic year. The readiness monitoring is split into two parts; monitoring ahead of the closure of the current year as well as readiness at the start of the new year.
The Deputy Director-General for District Support, Coordination and Monitoring at DBE Mrs Palesa Tyobeka told Members of Parliament that the department had guided the enrolment of learners in the system by requiring that all learners be registered in schools by September of the preceding year.
These measures are taken to enable the Department to plan for the upcoming year particularly to manage areas and schools that historically have larger than normal applications or areas where there is an outmigration of learners.
Late applications continue to be a problem despite massive communication about application cut off dates by provinces. These are twofold: parents who ignore the published closing dates and parents from rural communities who move to big cities at the beginning of the year to lodge applications.