Today, the Democratic Alliance (DA) conducted an oversight inspection at the President High School in Ridgeway, Johannesburg South and we discovered that the school has received 1838 Grade 8 applications for 2021 academic year, yet the school can only accommodate 400 learners.
The school currently has 570 Grade 8 learners and a total number of 1850 learners.
There is a need for 12 additional classrooms for this school to be able to accommodate all the Grade 8 learners that have applied at this school.
The school is also waiting for the Gauteng Department of Education to pay R7 million so that they can start the process of building additional classrooms.
The schools in Johannesburg South are experiencing a lot of pressure and there is a high demand for schools due to new developments in the area.
The Hills High School was temporarily housing unplaced learners from different schools around the area. The Sir John Adamson High School is also housing unplaced Grade 8 Learners from different schools.
It is high time that the department ensures that it plans for more learners next year.
The DA calls on MEC Lesufi to speed-up the process of building a new school in Winchester Hills to ensure that all learners who applied for grade 8 will be placed in 2021 academic year.
The department should prioritize building more new schools in this area to match the demand of new developments in Johannesburg South. This will also minimize the current pressure faced by schools in the area.
We also call on the MEC to ensure that they provide additional classrooms to those schools that have received a high number of Grade 8 applications to ensure that the 2021 academic year is not disrupted.