The Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) has announced the 2026 Online Admissions for Grade One and Grade Eight Application Period, which will open on July 24 at 08:00 and close on August 29 at midnight.

Gauteng MEC for Education, Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation, Matome Chiloane said it had been 10 years of online admissions.

Since its introduction in 2015 in Gauteng, the GDE Online Admissions Application System has successfully assisted hundreds of thousands of parents and guardians in securing a space for their children entering Grade One and Grade Eight at Gauteng public schools.

• This system has proven to be much more advanced than the previous manual application approach, which led to thousands of parents and guardians camping outside of certain schools, especially in high-pressure areas, for days when seeking placement.

• Accordingly, the system has a 98% placement rate of all complete applications submitted online for 10 consecutive years up to and including the 2025 academic year, when close to 400 000 learners were placed.

• For the 2026 academic year, the department intends to continue to ensure that all learners in the Gauteng Province are placed in schools based on reasonable, fair and just admissions criteria.

Online admissions system

The Online Admissions Application System was created with the intention to achieve the following objectives:

• Easy online submission of Grade One and Grade Eight applications by parents and guardians from the comfort of their homes, offices or any one of the Decentralised Admissions Walk-in Centres across the province;

• Queue elimination – eliminating the need for parents to wait in long queues at schools during application periods;

• Timely placement – all learners are placed within specific timeframes using a sophisticated system;

• Capacity-based placement – schools place learners according to their capacity, adhering to infrastructure norms and standards (learners are placed according to the admissions regulations and the school’s entry grade capacity, adhering to infrastructure norms and standards);

• Efficient management – streamlining of admissions processes across Gauteng;

• Provision of accurate statistics for planning and reporting purposes;

• Immediate access to data and statistics to facilitate a transparent admissions process;

• Centralised database to inform resourcing needs across all functions.

The process

All parents and guardians in Gauteng with children going to Grade One and/or Grade Eight in the 2026 Academic year must apply online to be admitted to a Gauteng public school.

• All applications for Grade One and Grade Eight learners will be processed through the GDE Online Admissions System only.

• Parents and guardians applying for Grade One and Grade Eight must all apply during the application period (July 24 to August 29).

• Parents must apply within the application period because schools become full and will not be available for late applications. Parents applying late do not have a wide choice of schools.

• Entry grade for 2026 admissions is Grade One.

• Parents with children who are currently in Grade R must also apply online for their children to be admitted to Grade One (there’s no automatic progression to Grade One).

• All Grade One applications will be processed and qualified in line with the admissions regulations.

• Parents are reminded that the GDE Online Admissions System currently only services applications to Grade One and Grade Eight.

• Applications to other grades must be made directly at the school(s) of your choice.

2026 online admissions application period

To apply, parents and guardians must first register on: www.gdeadmissions.gov.za, which will go live on July 24 at 08:00 for applications

• Parents will not be able to access the system before it goes live on July 24.

• All parents are expected to register, as previous login details will no longer be valid.

• Only parents with children going to Grade One and/or Grade Eight seeking space at a public school in Gauteng for the 2026 academic year will be able to register and apply online.

• Applications will then close on August 29 at midnight.

• No new applications will be accepted once the application period has closed.

• After registering on www.gdeadmissions.gov.za, the system will prompt parents to create login credentials (username and password), which they will use to access the Online Admissions System to view and manage their application details.

• Parents must remember to read and accept the terms and conditions.