Questions/Answers

In its quest to continuously improve service delivery to ordinary citizens of the Gauteng Province, the GDE introduced the Online Admissions Application System, thereby advancing ICT in line with Pillar 6 of the Department (ICT in Education) which was to contribute towards modernisation in schools. The primary aim was to develop a centralised database for planning and monitoring admissions processes in the province. The secondary aim was to eradicate long queues at schools on the first day of application. The Application was designed to ensure that schools apply Admissions Regulations fairly and equitably.

The Admissions Online Application was introduced in 2015 as a pilot and it is driven by Pillar 6 on ICT in Education: • To create a centralised database that will inform the resourcing needs across all line functions • Eliminate long queues at schools during the application period • Placement of all learners within the set timeframes • Ensure that schools place learners according to the capacity of the school in line with Infrastructure Norms and Standards • Ensure accurate data for proper planning • Ensure efficient management and monitoring of the admissions processes in the province • Enable parents to access the department’s services at ease

The initiative enhances the responsiveness of government to the demands and needs of citizens. It also promotes the participation of citizens of the Province through new institutional mechanisms.

The Online Admissions Application System allows parents to apply for admission of their children to entry grades (Grade 1 and 0) and Grade 8 at schools from the comfort of their home or office, thus avoiding queues at schools while saving valuable time and resources. On registration, each parent creates unique login credentials for protection of personal information. Upon application, the system generates and sends through the short message system, a waiting list Number as a unique identifier of the applicant to at least three schools. Simultaneously, a waiting list is generated at school placing all applicants in chronological order.

The Online Admissions Application System has enabled the Department to: • implement the Admissions Regulations fairly and equitably • streamline the application process • readily identify schools experiencing admissions pressure and ensuring timeous intervention to mitigate possible challenges The system has enabled the department to make effective, efficient and valuable decisions to improve service delivery.

During 2016 more than 454 902 applicants were successfully registered thus making it possible for the department to have information that will be used to plan for adequate facilities, human resource capital and others. The successes of this project eliminated the pain of parents sitting in long queues and ensuring that learners have access to quality schools.

For the first time in Gauteng all parents of children going into Grade 1 or 8 in Public Schools were enabled to apply for places for their children for three schools (first, second and third choice), either close to where they live or where they work without having to take time off work, and without even having to visit the school. The parent provided their own and their child’s details online and the Application then interrogated a Geographic Information System (GIS) and identified the appropriate schools. The parents could apply from the convenience of their own home, and receive confirmation that their application was receiving attention by SMS, or check on the status of their application on the Internet. The GDE thus ensured that the Admissions Regulations were strictly adhered to and that no parent was turned away from schools for spurious, illegal reasons. Parents and their learners were therefore given a convenient and equal opportunity to apply to schools of their choice.

The project is the original initiative of the Gauteng Department of Education.

Online Admissions Application was developed by the employees of the Gauteng Department of Education. The project was funded from the budget allocated to the department. The Application is centrally hosted at the State Information Technology Agency (SITA).

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The Application can therefore easily be “donated” (free –of – charge) to all other Provincial Education Departments. All that is required is to customise the look and feel, perhaps add a local language, change the logos and update the Geographic Information System (GIS) data set to include the maps of the relevant Provinces. The Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) Developers are even willing to assist other Provincial Education Departments with these tasks. The project can be replicated in a National Database System that can be used at the national office (Department of Basic Education) to monitor school admissions nationally.

The recent Constitutional Court decision, Case CCT209/15,heard on 5th May 2015,and decided on 20th May 2015 (See attachments), gave the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) Head of the Department (HOD) the competence to determine the enrolment capacity of a school, and further instructed the MEC to map out “feeder zones” around schools as a means of identifying children for admissions. This not only makes the Online Admissions Application essential and sustainable, it necessitates a re-engineering of the application to accommodate these feeder zones. IT Systems’ resources have already been deployed, and work is currently underway to enhance the 2016 version (Release 2) and to develop a parallel system, which will accommodate the feeder zone ruling. The Member of the Executive Council (MEC) and the Head of the Department fully support the project. In order to ensure the personal information was protected, the relevant security policies were complied with (see attachments).In addition, The State Information Technology Agency (SITA) are the guardians of Information Security for the Government and the Country and every measure was taken to protect the information harvested by the Online Admissions.

To ensure sustainability of the project, Task teams were set up with various designations at Head Office, Districts and School level. To ensure sustenance and support to schools, ICT Specialists at Districts have been trained to provide support and monitor the implementation of the project. ICT Committee has also been set up at schools to identify challenges and escalate them for intervention. Technicians have been deployed to provide on-site support at a school level. The Initiative forms part of the strategic pillars of the department namely Pillar 6 which is ICT in Education. The initiative is also part of the vision of the current Member of the Executive Council (MEC) responsible for Education who regards the maximum utilisation of technology as an enabler in a classroom environment for teaching and learning. He also has a vision of building classrooms of the future which are paperless and technology driven.

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The initiative was evaluated through a research project within the department which produced a number of reports.

Although there were glitches when the system went live, parents were happy that it allowed them a fair placement of learners in 2017. It is also evident that the system needs to be reinforced in order to work efficiently for the 2019 admission process.

The indicators included migration and enrolment trends. The growth of schools (this includes the merging and building of new schools) which has an effect or impact on the infrastructure and the recruitment of new teachers.

The stakeholders that were involved in the initiative included the Member of the Executive Council (MEC) responsible for Education in the Gauteng Province, Deputy Director-Generals, Chief Directors, District Directors, Principals, School Governing Bodies (SGB's), State Information Technology Agency (SITA) and Service Providers. The responsibility of all these stakeholders was to ensure that the project is implemented successfully. The responsibility of the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) was to provide support for IT rollout including connectivity. Service Providers had the responsibility of assisting with connectivity at schools.

When the Online Admission system went live on the 11 April 2016 technical glitches were experienced due to the system experiencing high volumes of applications at the rate of 600 “hits” per second resulting in the system crashing. The process had to be suspended for 48 hours however the suspension did not disadvantage any parent as the initial period was meant for registration only. The system capacity was improved by increasing the bandwidth number of servers and other relevant applications. To ensure that admissions timeframes are not tampered with. The State Information Technology Agency (SITA) outsourced services of a service provider to ensure an infrastructure that could accommodate between 20 000-30 000 applications per minute. The migration was managed by the technical team and the information system industry experts. The technical team resolved the challenges and the Member of the Executive Council (MEC) held a media briefing on the 19 April 2016 declaring the system to have gone “Live”. Within the first 10 minutes of the system going live, 5,035 applicants had been successfully processed. From a data perspective, the GDE didn’t have sufficient information about space demands at schools. It had to project demand by looking at past experiences as well as population growth numbers and that is not the precise information.