South Africa

South Africa, Maverick News

First day of school: emotions, challenges, and a new era of learning begin

Education MEC Matome Chiloane and Cogta MEC Jacob Mamabolo interact with Grade R and 1 pupils at the recently refurbished Braamfischerville Primary School in Soweto. (Photo: Supplied)

By Nonkululeko Njilo, Siyabonga Goni, Kristin Engel and Nkululeko Ndlovu

15 Jan 2025

As schools across South Africa welcomed their new pupils for 2025, excitement over the start of the new academic year was dampened by placement backlogs, budget cuts, teacher shortages and registration problems.

Gauteng

Emotions ran high at the Braamfischerville Primary School in Soweto as Grade 1 pupils entered their classrooms on the first day of their 12-year schooling journey.

Some pupils cried, their small faces scrunched with sadness as they clung to their parents, hesitant to let go. Others laughed with excitement, their eyes sparkling, while many stood quietly, overwhelmed by the unfamiliar surroundings.

One parent, Lihle Radebe said: “I am happy and nervous at the same time, hoping she will relax and blend in with other children. I have waited for this day for a long time, so to finally see my child in uniform brings me a lot of joy.

Education MEC Matome Chiloane officially opened the state-of-the-art school with a symbolic ribbon cutting. The upgraded facility boasts WiFi throughout, a library, smartboards and tablets.

Another parent, Christina Moyo, was more satisfied with the state of the school. “I feel proud that my child is not just going to a school, but a good school with all the facilities that I didn’t have when I was a child.”

As the little ones gathered in their classroom, some seemed shy, hesitant to interact with the media and provincial officials. Many of them said they were excited about making new friends, enjoying storytime and playing games. Asked what they dreamed of becoming when they grew up, many said teachers, police officers, doctors or civil servants.

Among them, Njabulo shyly spoke up: “I think I want to be an ice skater.” His friend, Sbusiso, said confidently: “I want to be a president.”

Grade R and 1 pupils at the recently refurbished Braamfischerville Primary School in Soweto. (Photo: Supplied)

Education MEC Matome Chiloane and Cogta MEC Jacob Mamabolo interact with Grade R and 1 pupils at Braamfischerville Primary. (Photo: Supplied)

Asked about the placement situation in the province, Chiloane said more than 325,000 children had been offered spaces, but there was still a significant backlog, with about 14,000 (late applications) waiting to be placed.

“Our system is sitting at 100%, the only issue is those who have appealed and those who do not want the schools we have offered, that’s where we are having a challenge, but also now we have got late applications who are sitting at above 14,000 yesterday and I am sure the number will increase drastically today because it is the first day of the academic year.”

Read more: Achieving quality schooling for all South Africa's learners is within our reach

While some parents celebrated their little ones’ first day, hundreds more queued for hours at district offices, desperately seeking placement. Among them was a distressed Ivvone Mothabeng from Danville, Pretoria, who remained in the dark about her eight-year-old son’s future. Despite submitting her application and documents on time, her son was still unplaced, leaving her uncertain and worried about what will happen next.

“He woke up by himself at 6am, asking that I bathe and prepare for him for school, but I did not even know how to explain that he cannot go to school and I do not even know when he will start,” she said.

“I am heartbroken. The department always insists that we apply on time, but there is no point because now I am as frustrated as people who applied late.”

Mothabeng’s son has since been allocated a place at two schools – in Soshanguve and in Johannesburg, more than 60km from home.

“How and why do we continue with this online system if we are going to suffer like this? The department prides itself in allocating schools within a 10km radius, but that is simply a lie because you cannot explain why I am allocated schools that are so far away from me.”

Chiloane said: “It is a process, it’s an engagement between the department and those who want different schools. But what we tell them is irrespective of where the child is placed, they will get quality education and that is shown by the quality of matric results.”

Gauteng MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Jacob Mamabolo pleaded with the community to protect the school’s infrastructure, which has already withstood vandalism attempts.

“In order to sustain the school and hand it over to the next generation, it is going to require that we all take care of this property. I would like to plead that we all commit to care of this facility. We know there are people who will try and break into the school, to steal property and some of the things, but we believe [that], working together, we will be able to protect, preserve and make sure the school remains intact,” Mamabolo said.

Western Cape

It’s been a rough start to 2025 at Western Cape Schools, with severe teacher cuts due to budget constraints over the past year, schools that are already full as more than 2,000 pupils still await placements and late applications for grades 1 and 8 are still being received by the Western Cape Education Department (WCED).

While some parents expressed relief and gratitude on the first day of school, many who did secure placements told Daily Maverick they relied on appeals, persistence and personal connections to ensure placements for their children.

As teachers were released from posts in 2024 due to budgetary constraints, some schools were left with overcrowded classrooms of 30 to 70 children, with overstretched teachers unable to provide individual attention.

The province has more than 1.2 million pupils in public schools this year, with 107,000 Grade 1s and 100,000 Grade 8s. On 14 January, the WCED allocated places for 118,914, or 98%, of the children for whom applications had been received for grades 1 and 8 by 31 December 2024.

Pupils at Timour Hall Primary School begin the first day of the 2025 school year on 15 January 2025. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

Western Cape premier Alan Winde and education MEC David Maynier visited Timour Hall Primary School in Plumstead, Cape Town, on the first day back (15 January), and found things flowing smoothly and calmly.

Maynier told Daily Maverick: “Budget cuts have hit us hard… We have had to reduce our basket of [teaching] posts by 2,407, which has made a challenging situation even more challenging.”

The WCED announced on Wednesday that it would be adding 477 growth posts for new schools, classrooms and pupils this year. These would principally be allocated to new schools, but also to schools absorbing significant numbers of additional pupils.

“All schools are under significant pressure. Ultimately, our new posts and additional resources, I expect, will be directed particularly to schools serving poor communities because they are often under the most pressure. Over the next couple of days and weeks those posts will be allocated,” Maynier said.

Winde said that once the analysis is done they will place those extra teachers in hotspot schools, particularly in coastal towns and city centres around the province, where growth is exponential.

Maynier added that there was no doubt that the budget cuts put schools under significant pressure, and would result in an average increase in the teacher-pupil ratio.

Timour Hall Primary principal Tracey Pickering said: “I think every school is dealing with the loss of teachers and teaching posts at the moment. Timour Hall was affected by that as well. However, we are a fee-paying school. We also understand the economic times of our parents at the moment, but we do rely on our school fees which allow us to keep children in smaller classes and have teachers in the classrooms.”

A grade 1 pupil starts school at Timour Hall Primary School on 15 January 2025, pictured here colouring in a classroom. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

Placements and admission

Pickering said: “We’ve had a smooth start to our school year this morning. We’ve had many Grade R and Grade 1 children come into our school for the first time. I can happily say that it has been a calm atmosphere. I think we’ve had many more anxious parents than we have had children.”

On placements, she said: “Admission time is always crazy. It’s crazy for us as schools and it’s quite nerve-wracking for parents. Being a parent myself, I understand it. You want to get your child into the absolute best school… [We] received over 1,000 applications for Grade R for last year. We can accept 90 children… So the pressure is immense and I can understand where the parents are coming from.”

Timour Hall Primary was part of the WCED Rapid School Build programme, so it will be receiving eight new classrooms at the end of 2025, allowing it to take in more Grade Rs and more Grade 1s in 2026.

Winde said the school placement system was always a big issue in the Western Cape, owing to population growth, with about 44,000 people coming in every year.

“There are just over 2,000 young learners that have to be placed still. Then there’s the big question… Those ‘last minutes’, where are they coming from? Are they going to be here as in previous years? And how many? That’s the unknown, and that’s the hard part about it.

“The unknown is where and how we place them, especially because our schools are pretty full,” Winde said.

Soqhayisa Senior Secondary School received 98.9% pass rate, the top school in Motherwell township. (Photo: Siyabonga Goni)

Parents with their children guiding them to their class to kick start the schooling in Mpumalanga Primary school. (Photo: Siyabonga Goni)

Mixed emotions amid placement challenges

Talia Saban, from Strandfontein, saw her daughter start Grade 1 at Timour Hall Primary and told Daily Maverick that she was nervous but excited about her first child going to big school, especially given how many parents struggle to place their children.

Saban said: “I’m just grateful she got a school… People were struggling to get placed in a school, so I was so lucky when she did get placed because I know a lot of parents struggle to get places for their kids at a school… They had to appeal to get placed in a school.”

Parents Abubakr Hattas and Reyanah Slamdien from Ottery and Mitchells Plain were with their daughter Sofia as she started her first day of Grade R at Timour Hall Primary.

They said they had applied to 10 schools through the WCED’s online admission system for their daughter’s first year of school, but none responded positively. Sofia’s grandfather had gone to Timour Hall Primary to enquire, which was how they were shortlisted and eventually placed.

Slamdien said: “You apply for 10 schools on the portal and all 10 said they were oversubscribed, so the schools were full. The only reason why we came to this school again was because I went to this school.”

Hattas added: “The electronic system doesn’t allow for feedback so we were unable to change anything on the system.”

Tarin Petersen, whose son is starting Grade 2 at a new school this year, said he was initially anxious about starting at a new school, in a new environment, having to make new friends and get to know new teachers. But, surprisingly, this morning he was awake and up early with no struggles.

“He was waiting for me in the car at six o’clock in the morning already. So for the first day of school it’s been good thus far. All of our anxiety that we had leading up to this day disappeared.”

Petersen said they initially had a problem when they applied for Grade 1 and that despite applying to a number of schools near their home in Lansdowne, they were sent to a primary school in Kalk Bay last year, which was where her son completed Grade 1.

“With lots of appeals and transfer applications, last year we managed to get an acceptance at the school which is closer for us to bring our child. This is like literally 15 minutes from our house, where the previous school was like, you know, he would take 45 minutes to an hour to travel,” she said.

Bela Act implementation

In December 2024, President Cyril Ramaphosa handed over the implementation of the Bela Act to Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube, following a presidential proclamation to bring the Act into operation immediately.

The minister was instructed to immediately develop guidelines that will be sent to all public schools and provincial education departments by the end of January 2025.

With the first day of school on Wednesday, Winde said the WCED was awaiting directives from the national government, but that the main issue with Bela was that it required an implementation spend of about R17-billion.

“We haven’t got that budget yet… It’s not possible to implement it across all schools. Although the interesting thing is here at this school you can see the calmness in the Grade 1s… because most of them have come from Grade R. So it definitely does make a big difference. You can feel it. You can see it,” he said.

Eastern Cape

It was a rainy first day at school in Gqeberha, where the Fumisukoma and Empumalanga primary schools, in Motherwell, welcomed Grade R and other pupils.

The principals of both schools told Daily Maverick they are optimistic about the start of schooling. Fumisukoma Primary’s Nosinathi Hoboshe said the aim for the year is to improve the children’s education and work with parents to ensure pupils learn better.

However, these schools face huge challenges.

Education MEC Matome Chiloane and Cogta MEC Jacob Mamabolo interact with Grade R and 1 pupils at the recently refurbished Braamfischerville Primary School in Soweto. (Photo: Supplied)

Vandalism and ‘not enough’ teachers

Despite the optimism, Hoboshe told Daily Maverick that the primary school faces a lack of teachers. “Teachers are not enough. Even now as we speak, we lost two teachers while we have a huge number of learners in the school, and we need teachers. We also planned to speak with the school governing body to help us.”

The school also has a massive vandalism problem, she said.

“We have a library here at school that was given by a nonprofit organisation that helps us with the foundation phase upwards. Criminals came in and vandalised the place and took all the wires along with the windows. This has taken us backwards because now we have to start from scratch. We have securities at the gates but in Motherwell schools are being robbed. I pleaded with parents of children near the school to keep a lookout.”

Empumalanga Primary principal Zwelakhe Mwahleni said vandalism has been a problem since last year. “In the previous years, we once opened the school and we had no electricity, all cables were stolen by thugs. Currently, we are in fear of installing those cables because they might be stolen again. Another factor was that classroom doors used to be stolen a lot, and people took them to build houses.”

As parents arrived in their numbers to register their children for the year, Mwahleni stressed that they had been told to come last year to find a place, not when the school starts.

“Parents do not come when the school opens for applications, they only come on the first day of school opening. This becomes a problem for us because teaching cannot take place. We have admitted a few but there are still queues outside coming in. We also face a lack of stationery. We need parents to register in September so that we do not have these challenges.”

Parents of the pupils were excited, with some saying the registration process was easy and teachers kind. Nomfundiso Sikweyiya, a mother of two, says she woke up early to prepare for her children. “My children are in Empumalanga Primary School. Lumanyano and Loyatha Sikweyiya are starting this year (Grade 6 and Grade R). The process of applying for a placement was not difficult, and I hope that we work well with teachers by creating groups to communicate because children often say they go to school but actually don’t.”

Another Grade R parent, Mavis Mlenze, said: “I brought my child here at Fumisukoma, and as a parent I am worried, but I hear people say that the school is safe for children. He comes from a creche nearby.”

Meanwhile, a prestigious high school in Motherwell township, known for its excellent performance in mathematics and physical science over the past four years, with a pass rate of 98.9% for the class of 2024 and 281 distinctions among 273 pupils, Soqhayisa Senior Secondary School welcomed the Grade 8s by giving them a baseline assessment as part of the orientation.

Deputy principal Songezo Macanda said: “The admission process is currently running smoothly in terms of paperwork. New learners are currently writing a test so we can know how to stress when we teach. We have also issued stationery packs for the learners so that they start with their academics.”

KwaZulu-Natal

Noël Ingle, the principal of Glenwood Preparatory School, said: “What we have tried to do for the child as well as the parents is an orientation morning where children can come, meet their teacher and familiarise themselves with their surroundings already the year before.”

Debbie Van Zyl, head of the junior phase at the school, said: “It was adorable to see some of the new Grade 1s in their school shorts that look like long pants – little people in shorts that cover their ankles, it was very cute.

“When the kids walked in today, they sit at their desk, their stationery is there and teaching literally starts. How? Because children know their teachers.”

KZN department of transport and human settlements spokesperson Ndabezinhle Sibiya said 150 buses and minibuses dedicated to pupil transport at state schools had been inspected for safety.

The buses “provide scholar transport to 77,369 learners who are expected to walk more than 3km to 433 schools”, in an attempt to mitigate the effects of the heavy rainfall that damaged roads in the province over the festive season.

Challenges now and ahead

Ingle said late admissions were the biggest challenge schools face.

“We as a school have done our placements and admissions – anyone that arrives now has to go to the department for placement. We of course do not act independently and work closely with the department [of education].”

He said that the school is largely unaffected by the Bela Act because it is an English-medium school. However, “we unfortunately can’t take every learner that applies to the school”.

“Things are changing, and we do not know how the future will look, but we are here and focused on education.” DM

Categories:

Tags:

DM is much better if you are signed in...