Over 188 000 parents have already applied online

Within only 18 hours over 188 000 parents had successfully processed their applications for grade 1 and 8 learners on the Gauteng Department of Education’s new online platform.

According to a statement issued by Panyaza Lesufi, MEC for education in Gauteng, on Wednesday afternoon, parents have all received feedback from the system which has provided them with a reference number indicating whether they are on waiting list A or B. That means more than 50% of expected applications have been processed through the site.

The system again experienced high demand and at 3.17pm yesterday 37 800 logins a second were recorded. “These statistics give us confidence and hope that indeed our people have heeded our call to register their children online,” he said.

A step-by-step guide to apply online

“We are, however, concerned that we have received disturbing news that there were 13 unsuccessful attempts to hack the system since the launch yesterday.  The objectives of those behind these attempts remain a mystery to us but we have been assured by our technicians that the system is well secured to prevent attempts of this nature.

“We acknowledge there might be a few glitches in the system.  Some parents that tried applying online have received some error messages and as a result they could not proceed with their applications. We are touched by the frustration of these parents and share their pain.  We have noted their concerns and have put in place the following contingency measures to address their concerns:

•    We are deploying 8 500 officials to schools within the province to assist parents load their details online.  These officials have been provided with laptops, 3G cards and technicians to assist parents.

•    We have re-programmed the system to provide a step-by-step process which parents can follow in the event where they receive an error message in the system.

•    We have extended our call centre hours to between 7.30am to 6pm during the week and from 7am to 2pm over the weekend.

•    The system will be shut down daily between 2am and 4am to allow system upgrades, ie address errors picked up during the day.

•    A message will be introduced to explain the nature of the error and the steps the parent can take to correct the error.

“We remain hopeful that this system will provide us with accurate statistics to ensure that on day one of the 2017 academic year, all schools are provided with adequate resources to ensure that teaching and learning begins in earnest on the first day of schooling,” Lesufi said.