Matome Chiloane, the Gauteng MEC for Education, Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation provided an update on the 2025 online admissions application period for Grade One and Grade Eight on August 11.
He announced an application deadline extension to August 14.
This extension follows the State Information Technology Agency’s (SITA) upgrade of its data centre’s electrical infrastructure. It necessitated a complete shutdown of all applications and equipment at the SITA Centurion Data Centre on August 8. As a result of this maintenance, the online admissions system was temporarily inaccessible to applicants. The application period was initially set to close on August 12.
To accommodate those affected by the downtime, the application deadline was extended, ensuring that all parents and guardians had sufficient time to complete the application process.
“We are excited to announce that as of August 9, 768 666 Grade One and Grade Eight applications were submitted for admission for 2025. Number of applications, Grade One (325 712) and Grade Eight (442 954). This reflects 11 991 more applications than the 757 075 applications received in 2023 for the 2024 academic year.
“Parents and guardians who have already applied to schools are reminded that certified copies of documents must be submitted to schools or uploaded by 12:00 on August 21.
“A certified copy of the proof of home address is an essential document as it is used to determine placement. Applicants who have not submitted or uploaded certified copies of proof of home address by August 21, will have incomplete applications and therefore, will not receive any placement offers. Applicants who uploaded or submitted fraudulent or invalid documents will forfeit the opportunity to receive placement offers,” explained Chiloane.
Parents are reminded that the application process consists of five steps that must be completed in full. If you’re checking your application status and see “missing documents”, it means you need to submit the required documents to complete your child’s application.
A verified status indicates that the school has received your application and all necessary documents have been submitted and acknowledged. Make sure to follow up on any missing information to ensure your application is processed without delays.
Upon successful completion of an online application, and once all documents have been verified, parents are encouraged to wait to receive placement offers. The placement period will start on September 16, when the department starts sending placement offers to parents and guardians with complete applications via SMS.
Placement offers cannot be issued to all parents on the announced date, hence offers will be issued throughout the rest of the year until all learners have been placed. Parents with complete applications are advised to wait patiently for placement offers.
To receive and accept placement offers parents must:
• Login to the system to view whether they have any outstanding documents and submit them by August 21.
• Keep the cellphone number provided when registering to apply to a school as ongoing communication will be forwarded to parents via SMS.
• Save their username and password safely to log in to the system and view placement offers from September 16 until the department announces that all learners are placed
NB: Parents/guardians are reminded that all placement is subject to the priority of placement criteria and availability of space (capacity) per school. Therefore, applicants who cannot be accommodated at the schools they applied to due to the schools having reached capacity, will receive transfer offers of placement at the next closest school with available space.
Transfer offers are made only after confirmation that none of the schools to which a parent applied has available space. Parents/guardians who are offered transfer placement at schools that they have not applied to have the option to accept or decline the placement offer. Parents have seven days to accept or decline a transfer placement offer. If the transfer placement offer is declined, the parent may submit an objection within seven days.
The department requires 14 days to respond to objections and provide an outcome to parents. Parents have seven days to accept or decline the objection outcome. If a parent declines the objection outcome, the parent may submit an appeal. The department requires 21 days to respond to appeals and provide an outcome to parents.
The appeal outcome is final. Only applicants who could not be accommodated at a school they applied to may submit an objection and appeal.
To assist high-pressure schools to accommodate more learners, the department will augment classroom shortages and enhance space by providing schools with mobile units and transferring funds to schools for self-build classroom projects.
“We must emphasise that, with all these interventions, it will not be possible to accommodate all applicants to schools they prefer. However, all applicants will be placed at schools with available space,” he said.
Comaro Chronicle
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