Parents must apply for online admission to ensure children don’t miss 2022 academic year

10 August 2021

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng is calling on all parents and guardians to make use of the online admission system which opens today, 10 August, to apply for their children’s school placement to ensure that no education-deserving learner misses a day of schooling when the new 2022 academic year begins.

Delays in applying for online admission has resulted in many learners across the province missing months of schooling, and learners being placed in schools that have not been chosen by their parents.

The first phase of Gauteng online admission is open today, 10 August and is set to close on 3 September. The second phase will open on 13 September and close on 8 October. The learner’s placement of phase one will happen between 15 October and 30 November, while phase two will be between 15 and 20 November.

We urge parents and guardians to use this opportunity to start applying for their children immediately and not to wait for the last minute, while those who do not have internet access should go to their nearest designated centre to be assisted with the online application. Parents who are also facing difficulties with their applications should also go to their nearest designated centre.

We also call on the Gauteng Department of Education to ensure that all the applications received on time are processed and the learner’s placement is done within the stipulated timeframe.

Based on previous experiences, many parents whose children were not allocated schools claim that they had applied on time. It is the responsibility of the department to regularly communicate with parents by informing them whether their child or children have been placed in a school. Should the preferred school experience a high admission demand and the child cannot be accommodated, the department should communicate to the parents so that they can opt for other nearby schools.

The DA will continue to monitor the online admission process to ensure that there are no glitches in the system. We call on the department to provide regular updates with regards to the number of applications received and ensure that the number of applications is the same as the number of placements on each phase.

We cannot have a repeat of previous years where education-deserving children are denied access to basic education on the first day of the new academic year because of the department’s incompetency to ensure that all learners who applied on time are prioritised and placed in school.

Issued by Khume Ramulifho, DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Education, 10 August 2021