Parents have just two more weeks to enrol their children for the 2018 academic year and some schools say the process has been going smoothly.
The registration for applications at high and primary schools opened on Monday February 6 and will be closing on Friday March 24.
It appears most parents have heeded the call to register their children on time.
At Siphamandla High School, one of the top performing schools in Khayelitsha, demand for Grade 8 spots has increased significantly.
School principal Andile Magadla said the registration process was well under way.
He said application forms submitted by parents were scrutinised before they provided “informative feedback”.
He added that due to demand for places at the school they have added an additional Grade 8 class this year.
He said the school normally accommodates about 200 Grade 8 pupils but next year they were looking at 300.
Lindile Kamana, principal of New Eisleben High School, said the school’s admission committee will have a meeting with parents to inform them about the progress regarding registration.
He said most parents wait until the last days of the registration process to enquire about the procedure and he called ON them to start early to avoid causing unnecessary delays.
He said the school battled with pupils dropping out, particularly in Grade 9.
The school showed a significant improvement of 21 percent in last year’s matric exam, achieving 68.05 percent.
Centre of Science and Technology (COSAT), which has consistently produced a matric pass rate of more than 90%, also had no problems with the pupil registration process for next year.
Principal Phadiela Cooper said the application forms are available and parents have started to submit them.
She said the school admits roughly 100 pupils for Grade 8 but they often receive over 200 applications and one time they received 800 applications.
“We then inform the parents to bring their children to write their admission test and that is how we select our pupils.
“We scrutinise the application forms thoroughly before we accept them,” she said.
Jessica Shelver, spokesperson for Education MEC Debbie Schäfer, said the department has set an early deadline for applications because of increasing demand for places in schools in the province.
The deadline applies in particular to children who are entering Grade 1 or Grade 8 in 2018, and children who are changing schools, she said.
“Parents have to apply before the end of the first term of 2017 for 2018, to enable schools to process applications during the second term,” she said.
