Pretoria – The Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) has recorded over 160 000 online admission applications for the 2024 academic year since the period opened.
Within the first hour of opening, the system clocked in about 60 000 applications.
This is however a slight decrease compared to 2023 where over 165 000 applications were recorded in the same period.
“We believe this decrease may be due to this year’s application period occurring at the start of the long weekend,” the department said.
The Grades 1 and 8 online admissions process opened on Thursday at 8am and will close on July 14 at midnight.
Gauteng Education MEC Matome Chiloane visited Winterveldt Multipurpose Hall in Pretoria to assist parents and guardians in applying for their children for next year.
Having assisted parents, Chilaone said he was impressed with the smooth progress of the system.
“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 utilising the system. Other parents also expressed that the system is faster than in previous years,” he said.
Although some parents said they were facing difficulties in entering their IDs into the system and the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) failed to process certain ID numbers, the matter was resolved within a few minutes applicants only had to refresh their browsers and proceed to apply successfully.
The MEC noted an issue in that some applicants who were applying for Grade 8 could not enter their previous schools on the system.
“This issue did not affect all Grade one and eight applicants, however, it was also resolved instantly and all previous schools are now appearing in the system for Grade 8 applicants,” he clarified.
He further urged parents and guardians to either upload certified copies of the required documents onto the system or submit them to the schools they have applied to within seven school days.
Chilaone said they have set up 80 decentralised walk-in centres across the province for parents and guardians to be assisted with applications.
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