Gauteng Provincial MEC for Education, Panyaza Lesufi

by AKANI CHAUKE 
JOHANNESBURG – THE Gauteng Department of Education and stakeholders are confident the online application portal will ensure a simpler and smoother process ahead of the 2019 learner intake for public schools.

The portal is in collaboration with State Information Technology Agency (SITA) and Vodacom Business.

The three-year collaborative effort will continue to see Vodacom, the country’s leading mobile network providing assistance with Cloud hosting services that include eight to ten Virtual Machines (VMs) in addition to dedicated firewalls that come with management backup storage services for the digital online application platform system.

In an effort to remove some of the challenges experienced by parents and guardians in previous years, the department has announced readiness to handle the high traffic volumes when the process opens for Grade 1 and Grade 8 admissions next week Monday.

In 2016, the department introduced the portal to help enable parents to apply online for the 2017 academic year.

To assist with cost challenges associated with access to the online application platform, Vodacom will open all 16 of its Information and Communication Technology (ICT) community centres across Gauteng to provide parents with free internet access to process applications.

Mickey Mashale, Chief Sales Officer for Vodacom’s Enterprise Business Unit, said the Vodacom Cloud service would continue making the education department’s system more robust by decreasing dependency on manual input and reducing risk.

“Our partnership with the department is an extension of our support for educational teacher training centres and our facilities will also be fully maximised to support the department’s online applications for the 2019 academic year,” Mashale said.

Previously, parents physically queued at schools fully 24 hours ahead of the start of a manual first-come, first-served process.

– CAJ News