Cyber-admissions get smarter

Steven Tau

The Gauteng department of education will continue to use the online application system for 2018 admissions. This is depite the demands of several parents that the old system be reinstated after thousands of pupils were still not placed on the first day of the new academic year.

MEC Panyaza Lesufi said they have been working on the technical challenges of the last admission period and that the application, infrastructure and the App features had been upgraded.

The server infrastructure has been upgraded to accommodate over 30 000 hits per second and improvements made to the integration of ID verification from the department of home affairs as well as the integration of GPS to ensure that graphic locations are correct.

“We will work with the e-government department to further refine and improve the online application as a pilot for government wide applications for services.

“We urge parents to take the opportunity and apply early,” Lesufi said.

Lesufi added that initial estimates indicated the province required 200 additional schools to deal with the historical backlog and meet new demand for places.

Forty-three new schools have been built since 2014, including new ICT-enabled classrooms in existing schools.

“This year, the department will officially open 13 bricks and mortar schools and build schools built out of Alternative Construction Technology (ACT) to alleviate admission pressure. To that end, we will continue to open a school every month,” Lesufi said.