1. MEC’s PRINCIPALS MEETING Hope Restoration Ministries Church 1 Beynon Close, Car Zuurfontein Avenue & Orange River Drive, Chloorkop Kempton Park 3 MAY 2016

2. MANAGEMENT PLAN FOR ADMISSIONS ONLINE ACTIVITYRESPONSIBILITY DATE RATIFICATION OF SCHOOLS ADMISSIONS POLICIES Districts certify School Admission Policies - Regulation 2(c)(4) District Director 31 May 2016 LEARNER ENROLMENT VERIFICATION IN SCHOOLS Districts verify 10 th day stats and conduct Capacity Audits in schools with significant decreased/increased learner numbers - Regulations 5(10)(b) District Director 31 May 2016 Districts submit a consolidated report of the 10 th day stats and Capacity Audits in schools with significant decreased/increased learner numbers to Head Office District Director 31 May 2016

3. ADMISSION PERIOD ADMISSIONS PERIOD (11 April – 07 September 2016) Re-enrolment of learners Learners currently enrolled (ALL GRADES) at the school are re- enrolled – Regulations 10(1) to (4) School Principal11 – 29 April 2016 Admissions in schools with boarding facilities Schools apply for permission to admit a fixed number of boarders who would not qualify for admission to the school according to Regulations - Regulation 5(11)(a) School Principal 11 – 15 April 2016 Head of Department respond to the schools’ request- Regulation 5(11)(a) Head of Department 15 April - 20 May 2016

4. APPLICATION PERIOD (19 April – 01 June 2016) Parents to verify information Online/at Schools/District Offices/Teacher Centres or other identified sites (GDE uploaded parent and learner information from the SASAMS database to the online system) Parents 11 April 2016 - 18 April 2016 Parents whose children are not in the system including those from outside the Province must register their information Online/at Schools/District Offices/Teacher Centres or other identified sites Online Application for 2017 learner admission starts on 19 April 2016 at 8h00 - Regulation 5(1) Parents must submit the supporting documents to all schools they applied at (within 2 weeks Parents must submit the supporting documents to all schools they applied at (within 2 weeks) Parents 19 April - 01 June 2016

5. APPLICATION PERIOD (19 April – 01 June 2016) Schools submit copies of Waiting List ‘A and B’ indicating successful and unsuccessful applicants to the District Director for approval and placement by the District Director –Regulation 5(7)(b) School Principal02 - 23 June 2016 Circuit Managers and IDSOs conduct cluster meetings with Principals to verify the duplication and spaces available Circuit Manager IDSO 02 - 23 June 2016 District Director manages the Waiting Lists from schools in line with available spaces and signs off the Waiting Lists - Regulation 5(7)(b) District Director02 - 23 June 2016 Schools receive signed off Waiting Lists A from the District Director for placement - Regulation 5(7)(c) District Director23 June 2016 District Directors submit summary of the signed off Waiting Lists per school to Head Office (Public Ordinary Schools Directorate) District Director30 June 2016

6. PLACEMENT OF LEARNERS BY THE SCHOOL Placement of learners in all available spaces within the school - Regulation 5(7) School Principal 24 June – 25 July 2016 Schools process learner placement online Parents receive an automated SMS indicating offer of placement School Principal 24 June – 25 July 2016 Letters to parents informing them of successful and unsuccessful applications - Regulation 5(7) School Principal 24 June – 25 July 2016 Parents accept/reject placement offers (Within 7 days) - Regulation 5(7) Parents 25 July 2016

7. PLACEMENT OF LEARNERS BY DISTRICTS District Director places all unplaced Waiting List A learners who applied within the application period in schools with available spaces - Regulation 5(8) District Director26 July – 07 September 2016 District Director finalises the placement of all unplaced learners - Regulation 5(8) District Director 26 July – 07 September 2016 Districts provide Head Office with data and plans informing mitigations of managing unplaced learners in pressure areas District Director 08 – 28 September 2016 All learners who applied during the application period must be placed - Regulation 5(9) Head of Department 16 November 2016

8. LATE REGISTRATION Late Registrations (24 June – 30 November 2016) Late Registration begins after the closing date of the application period - Regulation 5(5) Schools and Districts 02 June 2016 Schools continue to provide parents with application forms for admission - Regulation 5(5) Schools02 June – 16 November 2016 Districts manage the placement of all late registration through School Principals - Regulation 5(10) District DirectorDaily

9. BACKGROUND The Admissions Online Application was introduced in 2015 as a Pilot and intended to reach the following objectives: To create a centralised database that will inform the resourcing needs across all Line Functions Eliminate long queues at schools Placement of all learners within 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 of Admission processes in the province

10. BACKGROUND Mediation sessions were conducted for Principals, School Administrators, interns and IT Technicians across the province A step-by-step manual (user guide) was developed and is available on the website Help desks were established in different Districts, schools, libraries and community centres Districts were allocated interns to assist with registration and application processes Laptops and dongles with sim cards were distributed to all Districts to assist with Admissions Online Applications

11. LAUNCH OF ADMISSIONS ONLINE APPLICATION The 2017 Admissions process was launched on 10 April 2016, at Chief Albert Luthuli Primary School The learner Admission Period for 2017 officially commenced on 11 April 2016 with online registration, progressed into Application Period on 19 April 2016 and will end on 7 September 2016 with learner placements

12. LAUNCH OF ADMISSIONS ONLINE APPLICATION First time Grade 1 and 8 applicants including those relocating from other areas, provinces must register online www.gdeadmissions.gov.za www.gdeadmissions.gov.za Parents who had no access to internet connectivity were encouraged to visit Help desks in their districts and schools for assistance

13. ADMISSION ONLINE APPLICATION-FEEDBACK When the Admission Online Application went live on 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 crash The process had to be suspended for 48 hours The suspension did not disadvantage any parent as the initial period was meant for registration only

14. ADMISSION ONLINE APPLICATION-FEEDBACK The following upgrades were effected: The systems capacity was improved by increasing the bandwidth, number of servers used and other relevant applications To ensure that admissions timeframes are not tempered with 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 Systems Industry experts The system did not switch on as expected at 08h00 on 19 April 2016 due to the finalisation and loading the Application in the new environment The technical team resolved the challenges and the MEC held a media briefing at 14h00 on the same day and declared the system to have gone “Live” on 19 April 2017 at 14:30 Within the first 10 minutes of the system going live 5000 applicants had successfully processed applications There were 300 attempts to hack the system, however SITA ensured the security remains intact

15. ADMISSION ONLINE APPLICATION-FEEDBACK Officials were deployed to schools and districts to assist parents Admissions Online Application Parents who experienced challenges, with Online Admissions were encouraged to contact the Head Office Call Centre Parents who had no access to the internet had options of going to identified schools/centres to be assisted to apply online or visit Helpdesks in their respective district offices Thus far over 454 902 applications were processed with an average of 53 000 per day The MEC has humbled himself and apologised unreservedly for the pains and frustrations endured by parents regarding challenges experienced with the introduction of the Admissions Online Application

16. TECHNICAL CHALLENGES Parents had to apply using either their home or work address, this proved to be challenging as the Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates were not aligned to most Gauteng school addresses This resulted in the system offering a list of schools that were further than the 5km radius of the provided addresses It was realised that parents located in informal settlements and other new areas not declared would be disadvantaged as a result of not having physical addresses, hence parents were encouraged to use the name of the school closest to their home or work place In view of the above the system had to be shut down, reprogrammed and tested to adapt to not using the GIS coordinates to provide the closest schools

17. CHALLENGES AND MITIGATION ItemChallengesCauseMitigation Sibling Checkbox When box is checked, no school appears when a sibling is not registered On clicking “Register Sibling” a form appears in which a sibling could be registered Form would not submit upon clicking "Register Learner” Technical: “Https” is blocking cross- domain requests (as they can be a security risk). Now when “Add “Sibling Details” is clicked, it will redirect to the default register learner form

18. CHALLENGES AND MITIGATION ItemChallengesCauseMitigation Foreign Identity and Passports When parent enters foreign ID/Passport the system does not accept it Special characters like ='' ' / can pose a security threat to database application and hence fail validation when inputted The validation was set to exclude the special characters The resolution is to enter the Passport or ID Number without the use of ( / = -.) rather just the alpha-numeric characters only

19. CHALLENGES AND MITIGATION ItemChallengesCauseMitigation Learner Already registered When a parent attempts to register a learner, the system issued a “Learner Already Registered” error message This can occur when the Learner’s ID number has already been used This can also occur when the learner has been registered manually last year during the application period at school level Usually the newly registered user cannot see the registered learner on their profile Built a linking function on the Front End that displays the learner’s information to the users and then links the user to the learner after the users confirms the learner details

20. CHALLENGES AND MITIGATION ItemChallengesCauseMitigation General Error Code and 404 Code A parent with User Credentials and Password gets this error when trying to view or edit their profile information A parent may also get this error when trying to register or apply for a learner This occurs when not all the information was registered successfully on the system due to a bug (already rectified) but some parents still have that bug Common cause was when parent attempted to create a profile account but their ID number already existed on the System due to capture last year A user account is the created but not linked to any parent Built a linking function on the Front End that allows us to be able to link the user account to the Guardian profile Those whose Guardian ID or information does not exist on the system have to reregister. Once account is linked, the error will not occur

21. CHALLENGES AND MITIGATION ItemChallengeCauseMitigation School List School are not found on System Uncertain as to why import never ran correctly from CD Manually adding schools Parents missing information Some parents registered but their Information is not visible on the database This can occur if the parents were registered before 19 April 2016 Their information maybe sitting on the test database Re-import all data from test database onto the current Database

22. CHALLENGES AND MITIGATION ItemChallengeCauseMitigation GIS Coordinates Addresses not populating in terms of coordinates from Google. Architectural move Both Front End and Back End Systems fail to log coordinates for home and work (Environment based-functionality stopped working after the move to cell phone provider) Identify architectural differences and effect changes as necessary

23. CHALLENGES AND MITIGATION ItemChallengeCauseMitigation Duplication There are some parents who have been able to apply many times than they should be permitted Removal of trigger that disallows duplications so as to speed up the system Locked down Front End (this has already been completed) Clean up duplicates into a temporary table

24. CHALLENGES AND MITIGATION ItemChallengeCauseMitigation Private Schools included in list The school list provided by EMIS included Private Schools (ELSEN schools were omitted from the list because they have different admissions processes) Database contains Private Schools for current schools selection Parents choosing schools may have Private Schools included in their choice of three Remove all Private Schools from the application school list Contact the parents affected to ensure they are aware and that a public school will be substituted

25. LEARNER PLACEMENT PROCESS 24 June to 25 July16 26 July to 07 Sept 16 2 June to 23 June 16 19 April to 1 June 16 School update the status of applications to indicate where parents submitted the required documents Principal print Waiting List A and B selecting applications where documents were submitted. In a chronological manner indicate successful and unsuccessful applicants. Principals receive the signed Waiting Lists to process offers of placement Cluster meetings held with Principals to discuss further placements

26. LEARNER PLACEMENTS IMPORTANT STEPS TO BE FOLLOWED WHEN PROCESSING LEARNER PLACEMENTS prioritised The following learners must be prioritised when finalising Waiting Lists in preparation for learner placements: Learners living close to the school Learners whose parents live in the domicile of the employer Learners whose parents work close to the school Learners with siblings in a school Grade 8 learners currently taught in English or Afrikaans as their Language of Learning and Teaching (first language) Grade 1 learners taught only in Afrikaans as their Language of Learning and Teaching (first language) NB: Primary schools must not prioritise their Grade R learners In the first phase of placement a percentage 5-10% of spaces must be reserved in all schools to address queries/relocations and retentions

27. DEVELOPING A WAITING LIST FOR LEARNER PLACEMENT Waiting List A must be prioritised EXCEPT in the following cases: Where the applicants on the Waiting List cannot be admitted because their preferred language of teaching is not offered at the school; Where the system erroneously provided an applicant with a Waiting A number; Where parents chose a school furthest to the address used as a preferred school of choice; Where applicants were allocated a Waiting List B because they do not live or work in the area BUT learners were in Grade 7 in a primary school close to the Secondary School and taught in English or Afrikaans as their Language of Learning and Teaching (first language); Where schools do not have admissions pressure and have more learners in Waiting List B than A and the closest schools in the cluster are not full.

28. PHASE 1 LEARNER PLACEMENT PROCESS Taking place: 2 JUNE TO 25 JULY 2016 In terms of the Admissions Management Plan for 2017 learner intake, the Application Period is scheduled to close on 1 June 2016. process all Waiting ListsDuring the period between 2 -23 June 2016, School Principals and District Directors must process all Waiting Lists. –Schools are required to update the status of online applications as parents submit the required documents for verification. The applications in the system must indicate that documents were submitted –The principal should print Waiting List A and B selecting ONLY applications where documents were submitted and verified –Waiting Lists should indicate successful and unsuccessful applicants This process should be based purely on the basis that the applicants applied during the Application Period (19 April 16 to 1 June 16), qualifies to be on Waiting List A or B and has submitted all required documents

29. PHASE 1 LEARNER PLACEMENT PROCESS To process the submitted Waiting Lists A and B, the District Director should use the information providing the capacity of the school and the available spaces to determine the number of learners to be admitted in each school (between 5 to 10 % of spaces must be reserved to address all anomalies) Based on the available spaces identified above, the District Director signs off the Waiting List A or B indicating the number of learners to be offered placements Upon receipt of the signed off Waiting Lists, in the period 24 June 2016 to 25 July 2016, Principals are required to update the status of applications online to accepted but awaiting approval. The status of the application will change to accepted or rejected as soon as parents confirm acceptance or reject the offer Principals should then inform parents of successful and unsuccessful applications and await the period of 7 days to allow parents to accept or reject the offer of placement Schools and Districts should monitor the responses from parents and follow up with non-responsive parents to ensure that all applicants respond to the offers of placement to allow for the facilitation of further placement offers to be provided

30. PHASE 2: LEARNER PLACEMENT PROCESS Taking place: 26 JULY TO 7 SEPTEMBER 2016) Schools in high pressure areas where learners on Waiting List A could not be accommodated due to limited spaces available In instances where qualifying learners in Waiting List A could still not be placed as a result of limited spaces, the District Director has to coordinate cluster meetings with principals to facilitate placement in schools closest in line with the applicants option used to correctly qualify to be placed on Waiting List A where there is available spaces Where learners are offered placement in the second or third closest school because they could not be accommodated in the first school due to limited spaces, transfer placement should be agreed upon by the principals in the cluster and signed off by the District Director

31. PHASE 2: LEARNER PLACEMENT PROCESS Once the District Director signs off the lists for alternative placement offers, the principal of the releasing school must effect the transfer online from his/her school view and forward documents submitted by parents to the receiving school The principal of the receiving school must accept the transfer online and communicate the alternative offer of placement to the applicant /parent Parents must accept/reject the offer in writing to the school to ensure that schools confirm placements online NOTE: AS SOON AS PLACEMENT OF A LEARNER IS CONFIRMED ONLINE, ALL OTHER APPLICATIONS RELATING TO THE SAME IDENTITY NUMBER WILL AUTOMATICALY BE DEACTIVATED

32. LET US APPLY BATHO PELE PRINCIPLES … Please DO NOT…..Rather DO…… refuse to accept required documents submitted by the parent based on his or her home/work address Accept required documents from the parent and inform parent to also submit at the appropriate school after accepting the required documents, inform parent that his or her home/work address is not closest to the school Accept required documents from the parent upon submission at the school and update the online application after accepting the required documents inform parent that documents will be filed in the Waiting List B file Accept required documents from the parent upon submission at the school and file

33. LET US APPLY BATHO PELE PRINCIPLES … Please DO NOT…..Rather DO…… inform parent that his or her Online Waiting List A or B is incorrect based on home/work address or having a sibling in the School Explain the implication of Waiting List A and B based on parent home/work address or learner having a sibling in the school and that inconsistencies based on these criteria will be resolved request from parent proof of the Waiting List that was issued on-line upon submission of the application Track parent application using the Back-End to confirm submission of application online refuse to accept the required documents from the parent without proof of Waiting List that was issued online upon submission of the application Track parent application using the back-end to confirm submission of application online. Accept/ do not accept the required documents if parent records are found/not found on the online database

34. LET US APPLY BATHO PELE PRINCIPLES … Please DO NOT…..Rather DO…… inform parents that Grade R / sibling learners are being prioritised Inform parents that placement is done in line with the chronological position of the learner on the signed off school Waiting List A place learners whose documents were accepted and verified with confirmation that parent home/ work address is the closest to the school or learner has a sibling in the school Inform Administrators to start placing learners on the onset of the placement period

35. SUCCESSES More than 454 902 applicants have been 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 Summarily, the number translate to 53 000 new applicants being registered each day The success of this process eliminate the pain of parents sitting in long queues and ensure that learners have access to quality schools Placement of learners will commence from the 24 June to 25 July 2016

36. THANK YOU