689,000 children 'successfully' registered for schools

The Department of Education has called its online school registration process a success, with 689,000 applications recorded.

Oupa Bodibe, the Gauteng education department' s acting spokesman, said yesterday: "We have achieved what we set out to do and have the data we require to place the children."

He said the online system would be shut down at midnight last night and the applications would be checked for duplications.

Duplications could occur if people making the application asked family members and friends to register the same child to ensure the application went through, he said.

• Pretoria schools under pressure from Gauteng online applicationsThe Gauteng education department has received over 53‚000 applications a day on average from parents trying to enrol their children in grade one and eight in 2017.
• Johannesburg has run out of schoolsWhen the Gauteng education department's online application website was finally launched on Tuesday, the underlying problem remained: there are just not enough government schools in Johannesburg.
• Stand in line for schools that have passed the testNdaba started queuing outside Parkview Junior last Friday evening, 84 hours before the school opened its doors to applications for its 2017 Grade R intake. He was still there at 10pm last Sunday night, slumped in a camp chair, stupefied with boredom but as remorselessly determined as a first-time 1994 voter.
• Schools system hacks the hackersThirteen professional hackers tried to hack the Gauteng education department's online school application system.

"We will clean out the duplications and [use] the true applications to start placing learners in schools from tomorrow [today]". Parents wouldreceive text messages about the placements from June 24, he said.

Parents who are not happy have been asked to let the department know as soon as possible.

The department would then make an alternative plan.

Should thatnot suffice, parents could appeal to the MEC for another placing.

"It's understandable that parents would want their children in certain schools because of the reputations of those schools.

"But we as the department are saying that we will endeavour to place every child in a school," Bodibe said.