Thabo Bodibe 
The Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) has announced that from Monday, 16 September 2024, it has started issuing placement offers for the 2025 academic year to parents who applied for Grades 1 and 8 admissions.
This was confirmed by MEC  Matome Chiloane, during a media briefing at Bryanston High School on Sunday.
MEC Chiloane highlighted that parents and guardians who completed applications will receive placement offers via SMS to the cell phone numbers they provided during the application process. 
The placement process, he said will continue throughout the year until all learners in Gauteng are placed.
"About 157 407 Grade 1 and 168 457 Grade 8 applicants, placement offers will be sent 828 364 applications for 2025 admission were received. Of those applications, 344 890 were submitted by unique applicants, who are individual parents, guardians, or children.
"Unique applications, 325 858 were complete applications while 19 032 were incomplete. The department is currently in the process of finalising and processing the complete applications to be able to offer them spaces," said MEC Chiloane.
The department said parents or guardians have seven days from receiving the placement offer to accept it provisionally.
If the offer is not accepted within this period, the child will automatically be placed at the school offering the placement. 
The GDE advises parents to check their placement status on the department's website, www.gdeadmissions.gov.za using their login details, as some may not receive SMS notifications due to potential system glitches.
MEC Chiloane encouraged parents to accept offers promptly.
"Over 30 000 learners missed their first day of school due to not having placements late. People applying as part of the Gauteng online school application process are advised not to use internet cafes but use government centres or schools where they can do this for free."
Furthermore, the MEC said the number of teachers would not increase next year due to budgetary constraints. 
However, he said the department is committed to increasing the number of classes to deal with the growing influx of learners into Gauteng.
Parents or guardians who have queries can contact the department's contact centre on 0800 000 789, WhatsApp on 060 891 0361, or email gdeinfo@gauteng.gov.za.