Gauteng will not be increasing number of teachers next year

The Gauteng Education Department says it will not be increasing the number of teachers next year due to budgetary constraints but has committed to increasing the number of classes to deal with the growing influx of learners into Gauteng.

Head of the Department, Rufus Mmutlana, was speaking during a media briefing in Johannesburg, 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 just 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.

This will continue throughout the year until all learners are placed.

Gauteng Education MEC Matome Chiloane says parents and guardians whose applications are complete will be notified via SMS and they have seven days to accept a placement offer as final or accept it provisionally.

Chiloane says of the more than 800 000 applications received over 300 000 were complete applications whereas more than 19 000 are incomplete.

He says the department has a capacity to accommodate over 400 000 applicants for Grades 1 and 8, however, all learners will receive a place in school.

Chiloane emphasised 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. Additional reporting by Tshepo Phagane.

VIDEO | School admissions update with MEC Matome Chiloane: