Online registrations for next year’s Grade 1s and Grade 8s opened on 16 April and allows parents to sign up their children to public schools until 28 May.
Gauteng’s Department of Basic Education piloted online registrations in 2016, with numerous complications.
But the department’s MEC, Panyaza Lesufi, said that by 10am on 16 April, over 60 000 applications had already been successfully processed.
A parent can apply for no more than five schools per child.
Parents can choose schools based on various factors, including those that are closest to home or work, or if the child’s sibling is already in that school and will still be there next year.
When registering for Grade 1, parents can use their home addresses, work addresses, siblings and schools of choice options to register.
For Grade 8, a parent can also apply using the home address, work address or sibling options, and additionally choose the previous school, school of choice and schools of focussed learning or specialisation choices.
The department said that a parent applying for Grade 8 can also indicate the current school that the child is attending, and this will identify high schools closest to that school.
An application using the home address, work address or sibling options will be placed on the priority list A or WA.
“The rationale for this is to prioritise applications of learners living closer to the school. However, using the school of choice option, the applicant will be placed on waiting list B or WB. This means the applicant lives or works outside of the feeder zone,” the department said.
Once an application is successful, parents will receive an SMS.
They are then required to hand over the necessary documents to the chosen schools within seven days.
Last year, the online applications were marred with issues from learners being allocated to the wrong school to various website glitches.
But this year, at least so far, it is running smoothly.
The principal of Hoërskool Linden, Johan Wiehahn, said although the school is not involved in the online registration, things are seemingly going well.
“We have had a few parents dropping off documents already,” he said.
Wiehahn agreed that the process has been improving each year.
“I think the department is really trying to get a system that works.”
Laerskool Unika’s Dalena Blitenphall, who does admission and general queries, has had the same experience.
“We have had over 100 enrollments and parents say the system is working very well. They said it is easy to understand and very user-friendly,” she said.
Rand Park High School’s marketing manager, Heather Robinson, said parents were satisfied with registering online.
“They said the system has worked well with minimal technical difficulties,” she said.
The online registration system, Robinson said, is a great way of making use of technological advances, adding that the entire system has improved convenience for parents.
“And it has stopped the extensive queues and people camping outside the school for registrations.”
Go to www.gdeadmissions.gov.za to register.
Go to https://www.gdeadmissions.gov.za/Content/Files/LearnerAdmissionGuide.pdf for a guide on registrations.
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