Deadline for Gauteng schools online admissions extended by 2 days

11 August 2024 - 11:55
By Khanyisile Ngcobo
The Gauteng department of education has extended online admissions by two days. File photo.
Image: Gallo Images/IStock The Gauteng department of education has extended online admissions by two days. File photo.

Parents seeking placements for their children at Gauteng schools in 2025 have been given some respite after the deadline for online admissions was extended by two days after a technical glitch.

Parents and guardians had until Monday to submit applications but “to accommodate those affected by this downtime” the deadline has been extended to Wednesday.

“This extension follows the state information technology agency's (Sita) upgrade of its data centre electrical infrastructure, which necessitated a complete shutdown of all applications and equipment at Sita's Centurion data centre on Thursday,” the department said.

“As a result of this maintenance, the online admissions system was temporarily inaccessible to applicants. The restoration of all equipment and services at the data centre is scheduled for today (Sunday).”

The department said 768,666 applications had been submitted for both grade 1 and 8 by Friday.

Of these 325,712 were for grade 1 and 442,954 for grade 8.

“The above reflects 11,991 more applications than the total of 757,075 applications received in 2023 for the 2024 academic year,” the department said. 

Parents and guardians are expected to start receiving placement offers via SMS from September 16.

This will run “until all pupils have been placed”, the department added.

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