The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) has appealed to parents of children starting school in 2002 to enrol their children at school as soon as possible this year.

The appeal applies to children entering primary school for the first time, as well as children entering high school, or changing schools.

The WCED will launch a major publicity campaign in the first week of the fourth term, to remind parents who have not already enrolled their children at school to do so without delay.

"The WCED is committed to time on task - to ensure that every teaching hour is spent teaching and learning. Unfortunately, weeks were often lost in the past as schools spent time registering learners," said the Western Cape Education Minister, Helen Zille.

"We launched a highly successful, Enrol Early campaign last year to overcome this problem, and we would like to repeat this exercise this year.

"The media played an essential role in ensuring the success of the campaign, and we look forward to working with the media again this year to save precious teaching hours in 2002.

"Even the best-organised school will not be able to start the new school year properly and promptly if parents have not played their part by enrolling their children well in time the previous year," Ms Zille said.

"Unfortunately, every year there are parents who leave it until too late to enrol their children at their new schools: every year this makes it very difficult for the schools concerned to start the school year properly.

"At this moment there may be many parents who imagine that 'next year is a long way off', and that they do not need to enrol their children yet. This idea is very mistaken. As far as enrolling for 2002 is concerned, next year has already begun, and parents who wait any longer are going to make things difficult – for their own children, for the schools, and therefore for everyone else’s children too.

"I appeal to all parents of children going to new schools to act without further delay in order to ensure that their children have been enrolled at these schools before the 16^th of November."

The register early campaign will include radio advertising and the distribution of about

150 000 leaflets in key areas. The basic message will be "Enrol Your Child Early!"

Ms Zille stressed three further points:

1. "Enrolled" does not mean "put on a waiting list" – it means enrolled. If a child is merely on a school’s waiting list, his or her parents have not completed the process of enrolment.
   
   
2. Any attempt to use a fraudulent report to gain access to a school will be dealt without any leniency whatsoever.
   
   
3. A reminder: Under the age admission policy which came into force nationally in 1999, children may not enter Grade 1 before the year in which they turn 7. This means that children born on 1 January 1996 or later will not be admitted to Grade 1 at any public ordinary school next year.