The application period for Grade 1 and Grade 8 Online Admissions for the 2024 academic year in Gauteng has officially commenced. Applications will close on Friday, 14 July 2023.
The Department of Education (GDE) has encouraged applicants to visit District Offices and utilise 80 of its Decentralised Walk-in Centres to be assisted with applying.
To apply, parents and guardians must log in to www.gdeadmissions.gov.za. They must provide one reliable and correct cellphone number when registering to receive important SMS notifications and updates regarding their application.
“As of Thursday noon, 161 407 Grade 1 and 8 applications were successfully processed by the Online Admissions System, reflecting a slight decrease compared to 2023, where we recorded over 165 000 applications made in the same period.
“We are proud of the smooth start to the application period, and we are happy at the turnout of parents who used our system and succeeded in their applications,” said MEC Chiloane.
“Within the first hour of opening the system, a whopping 60 000 applications were received,” MEC Matome Chiloane.
Addressing the media at Winterveldt Multipurpose Hall in Pretoria on Thursday, MEC Chiloane said they were comfortable with the system and that contingency plans were in place in case of loadshedding.
Adding that parents reached out to share their smooth experience when utilising the system, others also expressed that it was faster than the previous years.
Although the MEC said the system was user-friendly, he acknowledged that there were applicants who were faced with challenges when entering their ID numbers into the system.
“The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) verification mechanism used on the Online Admissions was unable to process certain ID numbers. However, this was effectively resolved within a few minutes as we discovered applicants only had to refresh their browsers and proceed to apply successfully.
“However, this was effectively resolved within a few minutes as we discovered applicants only had to refresh their browsers and proceed to apply successfully,” he said.
Parents and guardians are urged to upload the certified copies of the required documents onto our system or submit them to the schools they applied to within seven school days.
SMSes with placement offers will be sent to parents from 4 September 2023.
Applicants can call the GDE’s Contact Centre on 0800 000 789 or WhatsApp on 060 891 0361 for further assistance.
By Thembisa Shologu
