THE GAUTENG Department of Education has put emergency measures in place to address parents’ concerns regarding online learner applications.
These measures include deploying 8 500 officials to schools within the province to assist parents to load their details online.
The officials have been provided with laptops, 3G cards and technicians to assist parents. The system has been re-programmed to provide a step-by-step process which parents can follow in the event where they receive an error message.
The call centre hours have been extended to between 07:30 and 18:00 on weekdays, and from 07:00 to 14:00 over the weekend. The system will be shut down daily between 02:00 and 04:00, allow for a system upgrade, i.e. address errors picked up during the day.
A message will be introduced to explain the nature of the error and the steps the parents can take to correct it.
The department remains hopeful that this system will provide 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.
