Next year’s online school admissions for Grade 1 and 8 learners in Gauteng are currently underway. While the department promised an improved application process, parents have said that they are having challenges using the system.
The Department of Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) officially opened its 2023 online school applications for Grade 1 and Grade 8 learners on Thursday last week.
However, despite the provincial department’s reassuring remarks that their application systems have been improved to work more effectively, some parents are struggling through the application process on the province’s online admissions system.
Parents say that they are having difficulties with accessing the selection of which school to choose from on the department’s online application system. In response, Gauteng Department of Education spokesperson, Steve Mabona said that they acknowledge that there are challenges with accessing schools, adding this is due in part, to their inability to access Google maps.
Furthermore, the department is reported to have accounted for 6000 google maps searches per minute as opposed to the 20 000 that they were compelled to withstand since they were recording more than 10 000 searches per minute.
Additionally, Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lusifi went on to say that the applications started ’embarrassingly slow’ due to a strong reliance on external database systems that failed to carry numbers.
The MEC also stated on Thursday that there are 48 walk-in centres in Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg, Tshwane, Sedibeng, and the West Rand to accommodate parents who are unable to access online applications.
The department confirmed in a statement issued on Monday that they have so far managed to process a
total of 350 207 Grade 1 and 8 Online Admissions applications successfully, since applications open.
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