On a sunny Wednesday morning, Bollihope Crescent in the inner-city suburb of Mowbray is back to its usual morning bustle that tapered off during the holidays. Cars line up the street and parents are dropping off their kids to the small, independent Hillcrest Primary School. As you enter the school premises, the first class on the left has a line of parents which extends to outside the classroom.

Inside the classroom, the Grade 1 teacher, Jamie Links, “Mrs Links” to the children, is handing out name tags. Meanwhile, parents take pictures of their little ones in their red shirts, navy blue shorts and white takkies.

“I’m very excited about his first year in primary school. He’s also very excited. He can’t wait to start! Primary school is important because it teaches them responsibility and how to communicate with other kids, so I’m happy that he’s starting school.” said Kurt Bowes, whose son started Grade 1.

Papers for grade ones to fill in at the end of their first day at school. (Photo: Karabo Mafolo)

Bowes’ son is one of the 107,000 Grade 1 pupils starting grade one today in the province. According to Debbie Schafer, the Western Cape Minister of Education, this is an increase from the 104,336 grade one pupils from last year.

At St Mary’s Primary School in Cape Town, Schafer welcomed “some of the more than one million learners that will start the school year in the Western Cape today”.

It’s back to school for all pupils at government schools nationally, with an anxious rush for placements in some schools that are over-subscribed.

In Gauteng the MEC of education Panyaza Lesufi was dealing with placing pupils who still didn’t have placements because of late registration and other issues. On Tuesday he said that of the “292,000 pupils who applied, 99.2% have been placed at the schools they initially applied to while the remaining 0.8% have been temporarily placed in other schools”.

In a bid to accommodate more pupils the Gauteng department of education committed to giving schools with high enrollments mobile classrooms and to give them additional resources to assist them increase their pupil intake. According to Panyaza because of a lack of communication between the schools and the department, the mobile classrooms didn’t arrive on time and other schools refused to take more pupils.

Back in Cape Town, Hillcrest Primary School has a total of 182 pupils and 28 of them start Grade 1 with one class teacher. Links acknowledges that not every teacher in the country has the privilege of teaching such small classes. In 2018 Dudumayo Senior Secondary School in the Eastern Cape had more than 80 pupils and four classes had more than 100.

Hillcrest Primary School fees are R25,000 for the year which means parents pay R2,083 each month. After-care, a programme where children are looked after until late in the afternoon, is an additional R575 per month.

Another Grade 1 couple, Nombulelo and Thuso Pono said that they were feeling overwhelmed “by the feeling of letting her go”. Their daughter, on the other hand, was eager to start school and meet her new classmates.

Links, the Grade 1 teacher at Hillcrest Primary School, says “parents often get a shock when they get to school” because of the dedication that’s required from them when it comes to helping their children with schoolwork. She encouraged parents to be more actively involved.

Although Hillcrest Primary School is a relatively privileged school compared especially to rural and no-fee schools around the country, it has many challenges, with transport a priority concern. Ronel Booysen, the school principal, says that pupils don’t all live in the Southern Suburbs, some come from Langa, Gugulethu and Parklands. “Being an independent school we don’t have a specific address that pupils need to stay in for us to accept them,” Booysen told Daily Maverick. School starts at 7.45 am and pupils who come in late because they live far tend to miss out on a lot of school work, says Booysen.

In 2019 Equal Education took the KZN department of education to court because the department hadn’t released a policy report on scholar transport. In the Northern Cape children had to walk 9km to school.

At Hillcrest, the first morning class started at 7.45 am and three children came in just after 8am. By then Links had started the class off by singing with them and making a few class announcements. A late pupil looks confused and is wearing the incorrect uniform — a white shirt with grey shorts and black shoes.

Only one girl cried briefly at the start of a day of adjustment to a new experience.

A statement released by the Democratic Alliance Shadow Minister of Education Nomsa Marchesi on Wednesday pointed out that among the challenges in the education system was that only one in three of Grade one learners in 2020 will eventually pass – or make it to matric. “Our teachers and learners face a lack of infrastructure, budget deficits, lack of resources, violence in schools and many more devastating circumstances hindering their access to education,” reads Marchesi’s statement.

Marchesi had visited schools in Bloemfontein where there were a number of Quintile 1 and 2 schools allegedly asking parents for non-refundable application. This is illegal as these schools are meant to be free and not require application fees from parents.” DM