The Gauteng Department of Education said it was aware that pupils at Theresapark High School were attending classes on a rotational basis.
Spokesperson Steve Mabona said that they had been supervising the construction team at the site and monitoring the progress of the school.
Mabona was at the school yesterday, where parents were staging a protest, unhappy with the incomplete construction of the school.
The parents expressed concerns about the delay in the completion of the construction. They said they had not been informed why the construction had not been completed by now.
According to members of a task team formed by the parents to look into the matter, the department forced the school to admit 1 200 learners, who were accommodate in nine mobile classrooms.
According to the parents, this was beyond the acceptable capacity levels of the school.
“The learners are on a rotation basis, and as a result, Grade 9 learners are only attending classes once a week and Grade 8s twice,” the tasks team said in a statement.
They accused the department of admitting a large number of pupils despite the fact that it had to capacity to accommodate them.
Parent Rafika Kanafe said they were concerned that their children did not attend classes everyday.
“Since last year our children were attending once a week and sometimes twice a week, which is really not acceptable.”
She further said they were urging the department to address their concerns so that their children could attend school everyday like in other schools.
Task team member Thabo Qoako said they had been going through this challenge for two years.
He further said it could not be that in this day and and age, there were children attending school one or twice a week.
“There is a school that is under construction which the department has promised a number of occasions that they are going to complete it, but today they failed on the promise that they made,” he said.
He further stated that the department’s last promise was that the completion of the school was going to be on February 29.
“We are sitting here and it’s a new week; we have been trying to get the department to respond to us numerous times, but nothing has happened to date.”
He said the parents were concerned that the first term of the year was as good as gone, and the children were due to sit for assessments soon.