By Neelam Rahim

The Gauteng 2023 Online Admissions System for Gauteng opened at eight o’clock this morning, but not without some glitches. Online applications for Grades 1 and 8 will run until 19 August, and pupils will be placed in schools in October. The online system has been riddled with problems for years, with the system crashing or children not being placed in schools on time since its introduction. This morning the system experienced a challenge with Google Maps.

Radio Islam International discusses with the Education Department’s Steve Mabona.

According to Steve, the issue lasted around fifteen minutes before being detected.

He explains that when you navigate on Google maps, a decision on the number of searches allowed on the system is made. Six thousand were appointed, and that number was surpassed hence the issue. We then interacted with them to increase the number, which was then increased to twenty thousand.

Meanwhile, since the issue has been fixed, applications were at a reasonable 165 thousand, which were processed successfully and currently sitting at over 216 thousand applications that are successfully processed. 

Steve added that this is an indication that the system is working.