Western Cape Education MEC Debbie Schäfer says her department expects an increase in the number learners who will need emergency placement at schools across the province in 2022.
In the beginning of the year, more than 23,000 new learners were still not in a school by the end of the first term.
Education authorities have been criticised for failing to find a lasting solution to this now perennial challenge.
The MEC and the department’s officials appeared before the Standing Committee on Education, to deliberate on the annual report for the past financial year.
Schäfer says a huge amount of priority is currently being given to the matter.
“The priority is such that I’m receiving a weekly report on the number of unplaced learners from the department and we also have bi-weekly meetings with the officials from Provincial Treasury to see what we can do be proactive on this. But we all need to understand it’s in all likelihood we will get more people coming who are not in our list yet. For now we are dealing with the ones we know about”.