Gauteng schools buckle as rising enrolments stretch R71bn budget

That was how Gauteng education MEC Lebogang Maile described how growing learner numbers, overcrowded schools and compulsory grade R aggravate pressure on the budget.

Maile’s comment follows the opening of applications for grade 1 and grade 8 for 2027 on August 5, with parents needing to register via the online admissions system, while parents seeking new grade R places apply directly to schools or early childhood development (ECD) centres.

“We’ve got an education budget of R71bn, and it must cover grade R through to grade 12, provide educators and cater for learners. Whether that budget is enough is another question. It will never be enough because the numbers continue to increase,” Maile said.

Although Gauteng’s overall education allocation increased from an adjusted R68.98bn in 2025/26 to R70.95bn in 2026/27, the education infrastructure grant fell by R463m, from R2.37bn to R1.91bn.

The reduction has made it difficult for the department to build more classrooms, Maile said.

[The government] is cutting educators. They are not building schools. They are not building capacity.—  Governing Body Foundation chief executive Marna Jordaan

Echoing concerns about the pressure, Governing Body Foundation chief executive Marna Jordaan warned that the funding strain was already visible at schools.

She said some Gauteng schools had not received allocations for norms and standards payments due at the end of 2025 or their first payments for this year.

“If that doesn’t come in, they’ve got no money to pay for their water, to do basic things. They’ve got nothing, and therefore infrastructure becomes a dream,” Jordaan said.

In her May budget vote, basic education minister Siviwe Gwarube said aligning qualified grade R practitioners’ salaries with foundational phase educators and appointing additional teachers would cost about R10bn over three years. The Treasury had not provided the full amount, so the department redirected R800m from the ECD grant for immediate grade R pressures.

Jordaan warned that making grade R compulsory without additional classrooms and staff would further stretch schools.

“We have a situation where we are asking the government to give us, for example, 10 classrooms and 10 extra staff members, but they are doing the exact opposite by cutting educators. They are not building schools. They are not building capacity. But they make it compulsory to send your child to school,” she said.

Maile cautioned that infrastructure alone would not solve the problem.

“You can have schools, you can have furniture, but if you don’t have teachers, you are going to have a problem, but there is just no money for that,” he said.

The province needs R35bn to build 200 more schools and R27bn to address health and safety problems. It is short of 5,554 primary school classrooms, while secondary schools accommodate 943,089 learners against a capacity of 855,081, a shortfall of about 88,000 places.

Gauteng has more than 2.4m learners at 2,111 public ordinary schools. Enrolment increased by more than 23,000 between 2025 and 2026, equivalent to the demand for about 19 additional schools. Of the province’s schools, 48% are operating above capacity.

“We are dealing with emergencies for now, because there are schools that are not habitable,” Maile said. Those will have to be prioritised while we are also looking at alternative ways of raising money and dealing with these challenges.”

Four Gauteng parents interviewed by Sowetan said they would reject placements if they were more than 5km from home because the distance was unaffordable. Two Kempton Park parents in Ekurhuleni were applying for grade R, while parents in Tshwane and Sedibeng were applying for grade 1.

One Kempton Park parent complained about the abuse of proof-of-residence rules.

“Parents from other areas are using relatives’ proof of residence to apply for spaces in our areas, and what is sad is that they get the space and our children are forced to go to other areas. We have reported this, but we have not seen any change. That’s why we won’t accept offers outside our feeder zone.”

Under the scholar transport policy, learners living at least 5km from their school may qualify for government-subsidised transport.

In a December parliamentary reply, Gwarube noted that Gauteng accounted for 2,145 learners at 31 schools who qualified for transport but who were not receiving it (of a total of 168,760 learners at 1,325 schools nationally).

Maile warned parents against rejecting placements because of distance.

“We would rather have a child attending a bit far from home than have a child sitting at home.”

Online applications close on September 4, with placements beginning from October 15.

Previous figures show how applications can fall outside the placement process. In the 2025 admissions cycle, more than 19,000 grade 1 and grade 8 applications were incomplete.

Six days before the 2026 school year commenced, 4,858 grade 1 and grade 8 learners were unplaced. By March, all learners had been placed.