Pretoria - Operational centres have been established in various districts in Gauteng to assist parents who have not been able to register their children in schools.
When schools opened for the 2010 academic year last week, many schools in the province were faced with parents arriving with children who had not enrolled last year.
Addressing the media on school readiness at Bokamoso Secondary in Tembisa on Monday, Gauteng Education MEC Barbara Creecy said the department had established operational centres at all districts.
Parents are advised to go to these centres to address admission enquiries.
Creecy noted with concern that the late registration of learners had become a major challenge to the Gauteng Department of Education.
"Despite the efforts made by the department to register learners in September of the preceding year, there are parents and learners who arrive on the first day of school looking for placement," said Creecy.
She said this phenomenon seemed to occur more often in township schools.
Commenting on the 2009 matric results, Creecy said inadequate curriculum coverage, learner and educator absenteeism and general lack of discipline were some of the reasons for the poor matric performance in Gauteng.
Gauteng was among the eight provinces which registered declines in their pass rates. The matric results for the province declined from 76.4 percent in 2008 to 71.8 percent in 2009, a 5 percent drop.
"Problems with in-service teacher training and lack of accountability across the system for poor learner performance also had a hand in the poor performance of the Grade 12s," Creecy said.
She said that the department would be making a number of interventions to achieve better performance this year.
"The department is to conduct an analysis to identify subjects, schools and districts for targeted intervention. Plans are already in place to extend Saturday school and holiday classes programmes to learners in underperforming schools," said Creecy.
