The Western Cape’s school admissions system is facing renewed scrutiny following findings that some schools continue to use exclusionary admission criteria, including academic performance, interviews, tests and scoresheets, as well as requirements for proof of parental employment and abridged birth certificates. These practices have raised constitutional concerns, particularly following a November 2025 court judgment that declared aspects of the Western Cape Education Department’s (WCED) admission policy unconstitutional. While the WCED has been granted leave to appeal the judgment, a monitoring and evaluation process by the national Department of Basic Education has found that schools and school governing bodies (SGBs) continue to play an active role in learner placement and admissions.
Speaking to the VOC FM Deputy Secretary General at Equal Education, Nontsikelelo Dlulane says what has been happening over the years is that there has been a tendency, within the Western Cape government where they create their own policies that are totally different and discriminate.
“I mean they are very important. I do want to mention to say that this is not something that is new, right? The findings of the Department of Education for the past two years at least, the parliament has been speaking a lot around the discriminatory of the policy of the Western Cape Education department. Then the Department of Basic Education (DBE) has been speaking on it also. And two years ago, which is 2024, but even before that, Equal Education has been taking the Western Cape Education Department to court. Specifically in 2024, it was about the discriminatory of the policy of the Western Cape Education Department, and what we were then saying is that it is unconstitutional does discriminate specifically late applications in the province,” said Dlulane.
Dlulane says what is at least important and the responsibility of the department is making sure that there is no learner that is on the street and every learner has a school.
“We took about 50 learners to the Western Cape education department offices and the premier’s office to say we cannot have the second quarter of the year that are still in place and having set foot in the classroom and you would be surprised that half of those learners have not received any placement letters half of those learners have not received even a call within the Western Cape department to tell them to go and attend school so we still have learners in the third quarter of the year that are still very much unplaced. These are learners from 2024/2025 so the discrimination is beyond and I think as equal education then we will continue to advocate and we also waiting for this appeal because we also find this appeal as a delay tactics,” she said.
Photo: WCED Facebook page
