Stakeholders welcome postponement of Gauteng online application
The Federation of Associations of Governing Bodies of South African Schools (Fedsas) and Afriforum have welcomed the decision by the Gauteng Department of Education to postpone the online application system for the 2020 academic year.
It was originally planned for the system to go live at 8 am on Monday morning, but the process has now been delayed by a week.
Fedsas and Afriforum raised concerns about the feeder zones that are used by the department, as well as the language preference when applying to place grade 1 and grade 8 learners.
Fedsas CEO, Paul Colditz, says they will use this week running up to 20 May for further discussions with the department to test the system.
"There were some technical glitches in the program which need to be sorted out. So, this week we'll be in discussion with the Gauteng Department of Education and testing of the system to make sure that those technical glitches and other substantial matters can be sorted out," Colditz said.
Meanwhile, AfriFourm's Carien Bloem says they are confident that by the time the school year begins in 2020, all learners would have been placed.
"At this moment, it looks like the department got their programs still together, everything moves on with one week.
"Where the placement would have started in August, it will still be in August just a week later. So, we hope by the time the school year of 2020 starts, all the children will be placed and that there won't be any problems like this year," Bloem said.