The Gauteng Department of Education served closure letters on 32 independent schools operating illegally between January and September 2026. Education MEC Lebogang Maile released the figures during a media briefing on Sunday, 13 September, which Cape Flats News independently verified through official departmental records.
Investigators examined 61 suspected unregistered schools across the province. Seven of the 32 that received closure orders have already shut their doors, and four submitted registration applications after being served.
The crackdown follows a similar sweep in 2025, when officials visited 57 illegal schools and served 31 closure letters. Gauteng now has 1,083 registered independent schools, a jump from 961 recorded in 2021.
“Where an institution is found to be operating unlawfully, it is instructed to cease operating and the relevant closure process is followed,” Maile said.
Maile stressed that shutting a school does not end the department’s responsibility. Officials must then place affected learners into registered, lawful institutions.
“The department does not regard the closure of an illegal school as the end of the matter because the learners still require education,” he said.
Illegal schools cannot benefit from the R1.13 billion the province has budgeted for qualifying independent schools in the 2026/27 financial year. That funding is allocated under the South African Schools Act, which allows government to subsidise institutions that meet registration and quality standards.
Pupils at unregistered schools are excluded from the Education Management Information System (EMIS). That leaves them unfunded, and their learning outcomes go unmonitored.
“There is no quality assurance over teacher qualifications or learning standards,” a departmental statement read.
Many of the shuttered schools charged fees but could not issue legitimate report cards. Parents often only discover the problem when seeking transfers or tertiary admissions.
Being outside EMIS means a pupil does not officially exist in the education system. The child cannot be tracked for funding, and their academic records carry no weight with other schools or higher education institutions.
The department said it has fielded numerous complaints from parents who paid fees only to learn later the school was unregistered. The rise in registered schools—from 961 to 1,083—partly reflects the pressure of compliance drives.
Although the current enforcement push is centred in Gauteng, education authorities nationwide have flagged similar risks. Parents in Cape Town and across the Cape Flats are urged to check that any private school holds a valid registration certificate from the Western Cape Education Department before enrolling their children.
The provincial department can confirm a school’s registration status on request. It also maintains a public list of registered independent schools.
The Gauteng department said inspections will continue across all five municipal regions. It has not yet confirmed how many learners were displaced by the latest closures or where they will be placed.
Cape Flats News will update this story as further details on affected pupil numbers and any parallel Western Cape enforcement actions become available.