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The State IT Agency’s (SITA’s) planned downtime at the weekend has prompted the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) to extend the deadline for online applications for grades one and eight in the province.
The GDE’s application window, which opened a month ago, was meant to close yesterday, on 11 August. However, the online admissions process has been extended to 14 August.
This, after the department experienced a system failure on 9 and 10 August, preventing parents and guardians from uploading relevant documents to complete the application process, revealed education MEC Matome Chiloane.
Chiloane briefed media to provide a status update on the online admissions for the 2025 academic year, noting the extension follows SITA’s upgrade of its data centre electrical infrastructure.
Although the system was up and running later on the 10th, the MEC says it meant parents lost two days in the application process, prompting the extension.
“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 [was] scheduled for 11 August 2024. The online admissions application period was initially set to close on 12 August 2024.
“To accommodate those affected by this downtime, the application deadline for grade one and eight has been extended to 14 August 2024, ensuring all parents and guardians have sufficient time to complete the application process.”
In addition to being the state’s IT procurement arm, SITA hosts and provides web maintenance support to a number of government departments and entities, including the GDE.
The IT agency last week announced it will implement a three-day planned maintenance and upgrade of the electrical infrastructure at its Centurion data centre, from Thursday, 8 August at 16:00 until Sunday, 11 August.
It noted the planned intervention targeted the long weekend so disruption to services can be minimised, adding this forms part of SITA's investment and commitment to enhance government’s service delivery capability.
In a statement this morning, SITA confirms all services at its Centurion data centre have been fully restored.
The infrastructure upgrades were designed to create more redundancy, eliminate the single point of failure in the uninterrupted power supply (UPS) and establish an additional power supply path with physically separated electrical distribution boards.
“We are pleased to announce that as of 17:00 on Sunday, 11 August 2024, all the major works associated with the implementation of the infrastructure upgrades at the Centurion data centre had been concluded,” says Tlali Tlali, head of corporate affairs at SITA.
“The plans we put in place were meticulously rolled out to ensure we paced ourselves to conclude our work in accordance with the standards and timelines we set in the project plan.”
Tlali explains the upgrades were aimed at enhancing the UPS output to ensure continuous electricity distribution to critical installations at the Centurion data centre. “The upgrades proceeded smoothly and on schedule, with major public-facing government departments having confirmed their services had been restored on Sunday afternoon, ahead of the scheduled 23:00 deadline.”
The Gauteng education department introduced the schools online registration system for learners in 2016, under leadership of premier Panyaza Lesufi. This was part of the department’s effort to prevent long queues and encourage a tech-savvy school registration process.
Although the system has been prone to hiccups over the years, the education department has remained resolute and insisted on using it for the grade one and eight registration process.
Chiloane yesterday once again reassured parents, saying all learners headed to those two grades in 2025 will get school admission.
According to the department, it has received over 700 000 applications, to date. It has recoded more than 96 000 incomplete applications, with parents yet to conclude their online applications to secure placement.
“Parents and guardians who have already applied to schools are reminded that certified copies of documents must be submitted to schools or uploaded by noon on 21 August.
“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 21 August 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.”
The placement period will begin on 16 September, which will be signalled by the first batch of communications to parents. They will have seven days to accept or decline the department’s offers. A response from the GDE can be expected within 14 days.
Parents or guardians can contact 0800 000 789 for assistance. Alternatively, they can send a query on WhatsApp on 060 891 0361, or e-mail gdeinfo@gauteng.gov.za
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