New classrooms built last year in ||Kharas Region's Kalahari Desert education circuit will help alleviate the pressure of learner placement when schools reopen for the 2024 academic year next week.

The Inspector of Education for the Kalahari Desert Circuit, Ryan Assegaai, said this in an interview with nbc News. 

The additional classrooms were constructed at Keetmanshoop under the government's Emergency Construction of Classroom Nationwide Programme to narrow the gap in terms of classroom shortages. 

"Every year we struggle with placement, especially in pre-primary, Grade 1, and Grade 8. So, in the past, we had a system where we allowed the parents to note down the names here, the learners' names, and then afterwards, we'd sit one week into the new academic year and then we'd place these learners. So what we did last year in our circuit principal meeting was say that we were going to send the parents to the schools to enter their names there because when they enter their names here, it becomes a lot of work for us, and we don't know whether learners are accepted at other schools, for example. So this year is a little better, so currently I do not have any names here, so all the learners that applied up to today are enrolled at our schools."

Assegaai encouraged parents who have not applied for placement for the 2024 academic year yet to do so.

"I am saying here today that we are sorted with the placement of learners, but what normally transpires is that parents will come next week Monday, and they will be here and tell you they forgot to apply or the kid was somewhere in another town, and then he will come and apply, but as I have said, hopefully, this year with the new classrooms that were constructed, we will sort out this problem because every year it was a huge problem for us to place our learners, so parents please come and apply; they have to go directly to the schools, so principals will place these learners."

17 schools in the ||Kharas Region fall under the Kalahari Desert Education Circuit.