Windhoek
The Khomas regional education directorate will this week be placing Grade 1, 8, and 11 learners who have yet not be found place at local schools.
The additional placement process will run from today until Friday at various sites in Windhoek. The process starts at 08h00 and ends at 12h00 daily. In the afternoon the officials will compile and update the statistics of the day.
The region’s education director Gerard Vries said parents who are in need of Grade 1 places should congregate at Soccer House in Katutura, while parents in need of Grade 8 places should assemble at Katutura Community Centre, close to Groot Winkels in Katutura Central.
For Grade 11 placements parents should go to the Teachers’ Resource Centre.
Vries said parents and learners would be informed in the course of the week at which schools they have been placed.
Opting for the “school of choice is not viable, as learners will be placed where space is available,” the education director cautioned.
He said the influx of learners was partly caused by the free secondary education programme introduced by government this year, thus there are a number of learners who are moving from private to government schools. He said another reason for the increase was due to parents moving from other regions to Windhoek.
Vries urged parents to be patient and not rude or abrasive to the officials who are placing the learners. He said learners in need of space are the ones who did not apply for placements between June and October last year.
To offer relief to overcrowded schools, Vries said an additional 12 tents were erected at Tobias Hainyeko Primary Project School. Six are for Grade 1, while another six are for Grade 2 pupils. He said 12 tents, six each for grades 8 and 9 were also set up at Tobias Hainyeko Secondary Project School.
Similarly, 12 tents have been put up at Havana Secondary Project School and six at Otjomuise Secondary School. The directorate is also erecting tents at Moses Garoeb Project School.
“We also put up tents at Faith Primary School and at Elim Primary School,” Vries said.
He added that government availed N$7 million last year to construct 20 additional classrooms in the region and concluded by saying that the Khomas Region is in need of eight additional schools by 2021, as learners who started school in 2015 will be in high school by 2021.