'It's only day one, we will get it right' — Angie Motshekga on Gauteng school admission glitches

Minister of education Angie Motshekga has told frustrated parents to be patient with the Gauteng school enrolment process.

Online applications for grade 1 and 8 learners opened on Friday morning, with the department's website inundated with thousands of requests.

Technical issues saw parents flood social media with complaints. The department said the issues were caused by a temporary restriction of a maximum of 6,000 requests a minute on Google Maps. This prevented parents from viewing and selecting schools to apply to.

Speaking to TimesLIVE at the launch of phase 2 of Anglo American's education programme in Johannesburg on Friday, Motshekga stressed patience.

“It is only day one, we will get it right,” she said.

“We ask parents to be patient. There are always glitches with big systems but we always get it right. We will get it right.”

Gauteng education MEC Panyaza Lesufi said almost 40,000 people can apply at the same time.

Education head of department Edward Mosuwe reassured parents that the system had been tested with the best technicians in the country.

“We have tested the system. Before it goes live, we put it into an operational environment and do a stress test. That is why we can talk to 40,000 concurrent users,” he said.

The department said on Friday it had captured more than 165,000 grade 1 and 8 admission applications for next year by noon on Friday.

Department spokesperson Steve Mabona said the glitch was effectively resolved within 30 minutes after the system opened at 8am, and parents were able to proceed with their applications.

The online admissions application period will continue until August 19.

TimesLIVE

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