Deadline looms for Gauteng school admission applications

Monday is the last day to apply for admission for grade 1 and grade 8 at Gauteng schools.

Online applications for the two grades for 2020 close at midnight.

The Gauteng education department has warned parents who have not yet applied for their children to do so before the deadline.

“As a province, we are pleased that the parent population and stakeholders in Gauteng have embraced the use of the online application. This ground-breaking online application has provided the department with credible and reliable information.

"We will, therefore, continue to enhance this system and link it to other existing government systems to further strengthen the credibility of the information attained,” said MEC for education Panyaza Lesufi in a statement on Sunday.

Lesufi said the department recorded the highest number of applications for admissions for 2020 when the system went live in May, with a total of 220,802 applications received for grades 1 and 8.

The number, Lesufi said, reflected an increase of ‪146,964 (67%) applications compared with the opening day of admissions in 2019.

"As at July 17 2019, a total of ‪298,003 (grade 1: ‪154,264 and grade 8: ‪143,739) applications were registered for the 2020 academic year," Lesufi said.

Online admissions were kept open during the June/July school holidays, a first for the department, according to Lesufi.

"Our records reflect that parents took full advantage of this opportunity as 8,069 applications were registered during that period," Lesufi said.

He said the department was, however, "deeply disturbed" that 62,028 of the ‪298,003 applicants had not submitted the required documents to schools.

"Parents will not receive offers of placement from schools where no documents were submitted," said Lesufi.

Parents who have not submitted the required documents have until July 31 to do so.

The placement period for admissions will start on August 30 and close on October 31, the department said.

"It must be noted that placement offers will not be sent to all parents on the same day as the department will be processing offers systematically daily in line with the order of application options outlined in the admissions regulations," said Lesufi.

Placement offers will be sent to parents until October 31 via SMS, but parents will be required to accept offers online or by visiting the nearest school within seven days.

"If the parent does not accept one offer of placement within seven days, the learner will automatically be placed at one of the schools that made the offer. Parents are therefore urged to accept offers as soon as they are received," said Lesufi.

"Ultimately, the capacity of each school will determine the number of applicants that receive placement offers and the number of learners finally admitted to the school," he added.