Johannesburg - Gauteng Department of Education has asked parents to apply online to place pupils who'll be attending Grade 1 and 8 next year.
While Tuesday saw a few glitches in the registration system, Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi has assured parents these will be worked out.
The start to the second annual online registration took place on Tuesday at Eyethu Mall in Orange Farm where Premier David Makhura and Lesufi began their tour issuing pamphlets and interacting with residents on how they should apply online and on time.
The registration started where the premier and the MEC helped community members register.
Lesufi told The Star that as a department, they had learnt lessons from last year's online admission process.
“The online system has been tested and re-tested to ensure that all identified challenges from last year do not repeat,” said Lesufi.
He added that they had already managed to register 16 000 successful applications within 20 minutes of the opening time and by lunch time, about 90 984 applications were processed.
There were still some hiccups with the online registration, with some parents raising their frustrations, though others were happy with the process.
Some parents experienced error messages while applying, some received SMS notifications without a reference number and others were told that their details already existed in the system.
Alinah Radebe, a parent from Orange Farm, stated her frustrations about the admissions, pointing out she did not have a cellphone and could not see her application's status.
“I do not know what is going on because I came in early to avoid long queues, now they are telling me that they do not know if the application was through.
"So now I am waiting for my child to come out of school to see if she will get a notification from the registrations.”
Tseleng Khumalo, another parent from the area, said: “I did not encounter any problems this year, everything went well compared to last year when I had to register my other child.”
Despite many parents saying they were happy with the process, many others on social media, who spoke to The Star at the event, still had complaints about the registration system.
The department also urged parents, who did not have access to the internet, to visit the closest of the 65 admission centres across Gauteng.
Department of Education spokesperson Oupa Bodibe issued a statement on some of the problems that were raised.
“Most of these problems have been resolved, problems were resolved swiftly, as soon as parents alerted the department.”
Parents are reminded to submit their documents to the school within seven days.
If documents are not submitted within the stipulated period, the application cannot be completed.
The closing date for applications is midnight on June 12.
The placement of pupils will start on July 24.