Johannesburg - The Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) is weathering a storm of protest after its school online application system failed again on Tuesday, leaving parents seething.
And as if that was not enough trouble for the department and MEC Panyaza Lesufi, they are now facing legal action over the system, which could not go live at 10am on Tuesday.
The Federation of Governing Bodies of South African Schools (Fedsas), a voluntary association of governing bodies of public schools, will take legal steps to prevent what it has called abuse of the e-platform for school admissions in Gauteng.
Lobby group AfriForum said they supported Fedsas’s legal bid as they were swamped with queries from frustrated parents.
Lesufi said: “I am quite aware there are people who want to take me to court purely because the system is not functional and that their privilege will be compromised. My message is very simple: Bring it on. I am ready for you.”
But by late Tuesday Lesufi said that after an initial glitch, the online school system was now live and functional. “The system will be able to allow 20 000 log-ins per second. There may be some problems, but the functionality will be there,” Lesufi said at a media briefing in Joburg.
Earlier, frustrated and angry parents gathered at schools and district offices trying to register their children while the online system experienced glitches for most of the day.
While parents were not supposed to go to schools to apply for space for Grade 1 and 8 pupils for the 2017 academic year, some schools resorted to taking manual applications.
This despite Lesufi having maintained last week that they would not revert to the manual system as it made it impossible to plan properly regarding the number of teachers needed, textbooks and furniture.
Tuesday’s problems came just a week after the launch of the online application system which crashed within hours of going live. Lesufi had suspended the system for 48 hours but once that time lapsed, he was forced to postpone it again to Tuesday.
The department said in the first 10 minutes of the system going live on Tuesday, over 5 000 applications were processed, with 13 hacking attempts foiled.
Last week, Lesufi said the system crashed after it received 600 hits per second. The system was upgraded to receive 3 000 hits a second but that still failed and was increased again to 20 000 hits a second.
But that was cold comfort for parents who were unable to log in and apply for spaces on Tuesday.
Evelyn Makgwe’s frustration led her and other parents to go directly to the GDE offices in Joburg in a desperate bid to get assistance.
“They don’t care about us. They keep giving us excuses and no real answers. Panyaza must just accept that he failed,” said Makgwe. On Tuesday, parents continued to camp outside Blairgowrie Primary School, having done so since Monday afternoon.
“The whole online registration process is so confusing. It does not work. They must just find another method. I have tried so many times today to register but the site crashes all the time. I think it’s overloaded, there might be a lot of people trying to register at the same time,” Paul Rodgrigues said on Monday night.
By Tuesday morning, the school had allowed parents to hand in manual application forms. Lesufi again apologised to parents earlier on Tuesday and promised the system would be back online by 2.30pm.
He claimed the system had been ready by 8am. He admitted the system was not perfect. “I must also forewarn there might be some teething problems, but the capacity and functionality is there,” he said. Lesufi said with the update in the new online system, the first-come, first-served criteria would no longer be used.
“We are reverting back to what we call Waiting List A and Waiting List B. All those people on Waiting List A, meaning you applied at a school next to you, we are assuring you that you will all be admitted in your school of choice.”
Closing date for applications is June 1 and parents will get confirmation on their applications on June 24 and 25. According to Fedsas, the electronic platform used by the GDE to register pupils is a flagrant abuse of power not authorised by law.
“Not only does the e-platform not comply with regulations, but it is also dysfunctional. The fact there is no concurrent paper-based system means there is no way to verify information. Parents without internet access are clearly disadvantaged by the system,” said Paul Colditz, Fedsas’s chief executive.
The Star