The Gauteng Education Department has announced that there will be no increase in the number of teachers next year due to budget constraints. However, they are committed to improving the number of classes to accommodate the growing number of learners in Gauteng. Rufus Mmutlana, the Head of the Department, made this statement during a media briefing in Johannesburg, which was held to provide an update on the online school placements for grades 1 and 8 learners for the 2025 academic year.
Mmutlana says, “As a growing system, we want more posts, but given budget constraints, we cannot increase the number. Our fall position is to ensure that we keep the number of posts we declared last year, the same in 2025.”
School Placement
Gauteng parents and guardians will from today start receiving school placement offers for their children who will be studying Grades 1 and 8 in the province next year.
The placement process will continue throughout the year until all learners are placed. Gauteng Education MEC Matome Chiloane stated that parents and guardians with complete applications will be notified via SMS, and they will have seven days to accept a placement offer as final or accept it provisionally. Chiloane also mentioned that out of the 800,000 applications received, over 300,000 were complete, while more than 19,000 were incomplete.
He says the department can accommodate over 400,000 applicants for Grades 1 and 8, however, all learners will receive a school place. Chiloane emphasized that when parents and guardians accept an offer from a school as final, the learner is automatically placed at that school and this cannot be reversed.
