Africa-Press – South-Africa. The Gauteng education department’s online admission system successfully processed 161 407 Grade 1 and 8 applications on Thursday afternoon, Education MEC Matome Chiloane has said.
On Thursday, Chiloane assisted parents in applying via the online system at the Winterveldt multipurpose hall in Pretoria.
The department said 60 000 applications for places in Grade 1 and 8 pupils for 2024 were received in the first hour after the system was activated.
Chiloane added: “I have also applied for my child using the system, which is very user-friendly. I did not encounter any problems and have also helped several parents with their applications.
“Before 09:00, we already had about 30 000 applications; within 10 minutes, we were sitting with more than 10 000 applications. This shows that the system had been efficient since the morning [Thursday].”
He said the department had improved the stability of the system, and there had been no glitches since its launch on Thursday morning.
“We have improved the system’s capacity to manage the number of applications per minute. The system can take 50 000 applications per minute.
Chiloane added the online application process was easy and convenient for the parents.
He said the department acknowledged some applicants encountered problems when they entered their ID numbers into the system.
“The Department of Home Affairs’ verification mechanism used on the online admissions could not process certain ID numbers.
“However, this was effectively resolved within a few minutes as we discovered applicants only had to refresh their browsers and proceed to apply successfully.”
“Going to school was tedious; parents had to endure long queues for days. We have made it easier for parents by using this system. It also allows us to plan better as we know which schools are in demand,” Chiloane said.
He added to help parents with information, the department had displayed posters in schools and community halls.
Chiloane said:
“We have about 80 walk-in centres in community halls across the province. People can also go to schools, municipal and provincial libraries for their online applications,” he added.
The department said the 2024 online admission application period would remain open until 14 July.
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