The Gauteng Education Department successfully processed 161 407 Grade 1 and 8 applications through the Online Admissions System, just hours after MEC Matome Chiloane officially marked the start of the 2024 Online Admissions application at Winterveldt Multipurpose Hall in Tshwane yesterday.
The 2024 online application period will continue until 14 July, and by yesterday afternoon statistics indicated that there had been a decrease compared to 2023, when the province recorded over 165 000 applications during the same period.
The department put this down to it being a long weekend.
“We believe this decrease may be due to this year's application period occurring at the start of the long weekend. Within the first hour of opening the system, a whopping 60 000 applications were received.
“We have acknowledged a challenge faced by some applicants when entering their ID numbers into the system.”
The department said it had picked up that some, mainly Grade 8 applicants, could not enter their previous schools on the system.
“The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) verification mechanism used on the Online Admissions was unable to 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.
“All previous schools are now appearing in the system for Grade 8 applicants.
"We are proud of the smooth start to the application period, and we are happy at the turnout of parents who used our system and succeeded in their applications. Many parents reached out to share their smooth experience when utilizing the system. Other parents also expressed that the system was faster than the previous years," said Chiloane.
Parents and guardians have been urged to upload the certified copies of the required documents onto the system or submit them at the schools applied to within 7 school days.
Parents are also encouraged to visit District Offices, and 80 Decentralised Walk-in Centres for asssistance with applying.