The Gauteng Department of Education is happy that the new school registration system has been up and running.
Also read: Education MEC apologises for online applications delay
“Within a period of 18 hours over 188 000 parents had successfully processed their applications,” says Panyaza Lesufi, MEC of Education.
“They 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, which means more than 50% of expected applications have been processed through the site.”
He adds that the system experienced high demand and at 3pm on Tuesday (April 19), 37 800 logins per second were recorded.
“These statistics gives us confidence and hope that our people have heeded our call to register their children online,” Lesufi says.
Impressed with the good statistics, the department is, however, concerned when they received disturbing news that there were 13 unsuccessful attempts to hack the system since the launch.
“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 that there may be a few glitches in the system as some parents who tried applying online have received error messages and as a result they could not proceed with their applications.”
The department’s steps are:
- to deploy 8 500 officials to schools within the province to assist parents in loading their details online. These officials have been provided with laptops, 3G cards and technicians to assist parents.
- To reprogramme 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.
- Extending their call centre hours from 7.30am to 6pm during the weekdays and from 7am to 2pm over the weekend.
- The system will be shut down daily between 2pm and 4pm in the morning to allow system upgrades, such as addressing 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 it.
“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 begin in earnest on the first day of schooling,” Lesufi concludes.
