Nearly 10 000 grade 1 and 8 pupils are yet to be placed in schools in Gauteng.

This was announced  by Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi on Sunday. He said a total of 9 618 pupils are yet to be placed while 272 000 pupils have now been placed in various schools.

"This means that 96 percent of the pupils who applied on our online registration have been placed and we are left with 4 percent which have to be placed before the month end of November. So far we have 3 210 grade 1 pupils who are yet to be placed and 6 408 grade 8 pupils. However for now our priority is to work with the grade 1 pupils as we don't want to stress them on their first experience of schooling," Lesufi said.

Lesufi said they have identified schools where additional classrooms capacity is required to allow for additional placements. 

"We are working closely and collaboratively with our schools especially those in high pressure areas, we managed to increase capacity to accomodate more unplaced pupils and most of the high pressure schools are full," Lesufi said. 

He said to update and engage parents in some identified areas, he will be visiting their communities. 

"We are working meticulously ensuring that necessary resources are availed to accommodate all the unplaced pupils by the end of the month. We urge parents to accept offers issued as these are based on availability of space," he said.