The Western Cape Education Department says it has received a record number of school applications from parents, for Grade 1 and Grade 8 admissions for 2025.

The Department says by the time the 2025 admissions window closed at 23h59 on Friday, 12 April 2024, they had received applications for 102 680 learners.

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This is an increase of 5 936 on last year’s on time window, during which applications for 96 744 Grade 1 and 8 learners were received.

Education MEC David Maynier has thanked those parents who put in the effort to applying on time and helping the Department to plan for a place for their child in a school next year.

All applications received after the deadline will be considered late applications, which will only be considered after the applications received on time.

Parents will still be able to capture late applications on the online system until 12 May 2024, but they will be flagged as late applications.

Parents of Grade 1 and 8 learners who decide to relocate to the Western Cape after late online applications close on 12 May 2024, or who did not apply before this date for any other reason, will need to contact their district office for assistance as soon as possible thereafter.

The window for Grade R applications and transfer requests for Grades 2 – 7 and 9 – 11 will run from 1 to 16 August 2024.

What happens next?

Now that on-time applications have closed, schools will have a little over a month to consider all the applications they have received.

• Parents don’t need to drop off their certified hard copies at this stage.
• They will only need to do so once they have received an offer from a school and accepted the offer as their final choice of school.
• Parents will start seeing the outcomes of their applications online from 30 May 2024.
• The date has been shifted by a day from 29 May 2024, in order to accommodate the public holiday for the general election.
• Parents must then accept or decline successful offers before 14 June 2024.

It is especially important for parents to confirm their choice of school speedily when they have received offers from multiple schools. These parents are essentially ‘double parking’ on the system, stopping schools from offering these places to other applicants until they make their choice.

If a parent has not confirmed their choice by 14 June 2024, the system will automatically confirm their top-ranked school that has made an offer.

All other offers will then be removed, so that those places can be offered to other learners.

Maynier says parents who do not receive an offer on 30 May 2024 should not be disheartened: places always open up as parents confirm their final choices.

We will leave no stone unturned in our efforts to place every learner whose parents applied on time as quickly as possible.