One rumour suggested 1 000 children from Cape Town were accidentally registered at a school in Benoni, due to errors within the system.
Gauteng MEC for Education Panyaza Lesufi launched the campaign in early April.
On April 26, the department released a media briefing, to address the issues experienced by parents during the online registration process.
“Over the past two weeks we have stood before the people of Gauteng and South Africans at large to humble ourselves and unreservedly apologise for technical glitches in our Online Learner Application Process,” Lesufi said.
“We have shared the pains and frustration of parents who experienced various difficulties in applying for placement for their children in over 2 000 public schools across our province.
“We have listened to their concerns and have provided necessary support and assistance where required.
“We have worked tirelessly to upgrade and re-programme the online application process to address challenges raised by parents.
“We are pleased to announce, today, that many challenges that we have been experiencing with the system have been addressed.”
The City Times spoke to the department’s spokesperson, Oupa Bodibe, who reiterated Lesufi’s comments on April 28, by saying the glitches experienced by the system had been sorted out.
“We can happily report there were over 400 000 successful applications,” he said.
Bodibe said the programme also helped applicants who wanted to apply to schools outside their province, as this would not require them to travel far just to apply.
According to Bodibe, this was the reason for reports of children outside the province applying to Benoni schools, though he could not comment on the figure of 1 000 applications from Cape Town.
The online application period for Grades One and Eight officially opened on April 19 and will close at midnight on June 1.
For re-enrolments and transfers between grades parent were requested to go the relevant school to apply.
Lesufi said the following challenges are still experienced with the system:
· The system providing an error message stating that parents’ details have already been loaded on the system;
· Difficulties with addresses of some parents from informal settlements and
· Challenges with identification documents of foreign parents.
For help or more information, contact the call centre on 011 355 0000 or 080 000 0789.
Parents can also visit their nearest school or district office for assistance.
Also read: Digitising school registrations
