The Gauteng department of education, in compliance with Constitutional Court's ruling, has published a government gazette to determine feeder zones of all public ordinary schools in the province.

This is after the Constitutional Court directed the MEC Panyaza Lesufi to determine feeder zones for all public ordinary schools in Gauteng province. Lesufi had said no child should be told that they were born in the wrong area.

“Our schools belong to all South Africans, it can't be that you were born in an area with lots of schools and those that were born in an area with fewer schools are denied their fair share to access education,” Lesufi said.

Lesufi said this was a radical shift in addressing the negative impact of apartheid spatial planning as asserted by the Constitutional Court.

“The feeder zone determination play a significant role in ensuring that access to our schools is fair, transparent and conducted in an equitable manner. Our schools cannot justify any form of discriminating against any learner,” Lesufi said.

The department has among others, considered the following principles which emanate from the analysis of South African education policies when determining the most suitable policy options to implement in the delimiting of feeder zones which is community ownership of schools, which considers location of a school in a community and whether the school is subscribed to by learners from the community.

Also the community embeddings that encourages parental support from the community and promotes community ownership of the school.

“Accessibility to schools should reduce learner stress and exposure to dangers of commuting. Travelling long distances to schools contribute to learner absenteeism. The lack of sleep because of learners leaving home at dawn, coupled with the strenuous effect of long commuting to school leads to mental and physical fatigue,” Lesufi said.