Your rights with regards to school registration fees and placement:
Schools inland have started their academic year already, and most schools in the Western Cape open on Wednesday.
Stats released by the TPN credit bureau show that before the pandemic, 75% of parents were able to pay their school fees.
However, in 2020 during the pandemic, only 45% of parents were able to pay school fees.
This struggle continued into 2021, with parents prioritising bonds, rent, food, transport, other debt and health bills over school fees.
Year after year, parents have to contend with the cost of stationery, school uniforms and school fees.
Added to these costs, is the “unlawful practice” of some schools insisting that parents pay a registration fee for their children to be admitted.
With the huge number of learners who still need to be placed in schools, desperate parents are scrounging around for these registration fees.
Some schools are even demanding a re-registration fee for learners from one year to the next.
However, the Department of Basic Education has confirmed that it is illegal for schools to demand a registration fee from parents as a prerequisite.
Government’s education policy clearly states that no child can be refused admission to a school because his or her parents cannot afford to pay school fees, and a child cannot be refused results of tests or exams, or sent home from school, if fees have not been paid.
The South African Schools Act states:
– No one registering at a State school can be charged a registration fee or asked to pay fees up front.
– No child can be refused entry to a state school because his or her parents have not paid school fees in the past.
– Where possible, children should be given access to a state school within 5km of their home. In some provinces, the government assists learners with transport when they live more than 5 kilometres from school.
The provincial department of education makes regulations guiding admissions.
Practical steps that can be taken if a school tells a learner that it is full:
– Ask the principal if the school had been officially declared full by the Education Department.
– Ask to see the letter which says the school is full.
– If there is no letter then the school must accept the child.
– If the school refuses permission, contact the district office.
– If the school does have a letter then the department must find a place for the child in the nearest school to where he or she lives.
Now, I fully understand that in order to run efficiently, schools require funding and school fees.
What I don’t understand is why schools are allowed to get away with unlawful practices of asking for registration fees, withholding reports because of unpaid school fees and not accepting learners as per the South African Schools Act.
If your child’s school tells you to pay a new registration or re-registration fee, inform the principal, SGB and staff that this action is against the law. Show them this article if you must.
Also report them to the district office of the Western Cape Education Department, take it up with the governing body and file a complaint with the national Department of Basic Education.
Some children have to endure unsafe travelling conditions and parents have to fork out chunks of their income for transport to take their children to schools outside the area they live in.
Yet, specifically in the Western Cape, the WCED seems to just be shrugging its shoulders and saying “it is what it is” – just grin and bear it.
WCED spokesperson Bronagh Hammond has said that a contributing factor to the large number of unplaced learners is that parents are submitting their applications too late, or not at all.
Now, I am no mathematician or politician, but would the obvious solution not be to build more schools and employ more teachers?
Yet, we get told that there simply isn’t money for this. That would make sense, if the WCED were actually spending all its allocated funding.
However, the ANC Education Shadow MEC, Muhammad Khalid Sayed, has said: “In the past, the WCED failed to spend close to a billion rand of education resources which were uncommitted and given back to the Treasury.
“These were funds that could have been used to augment school capacity and employ teachers.
“The problem is not necessarily insufficient resources, but it is the poor planning and management of scarce resources and lack of foresight on the part of the WCED.”
If you can afford to pay your child’s school fees, please do so. It’s the right thing to do.
But, if you’re unable to afford school fees and the huge transport costs associated with your child not being placed in the area in which you reside, know that you and your child have rights.
Stand firm, see that those rights are enforced and hold the schools, departments and politicians responsible for education in your province accountable.