The Eastern Cape education department’s decision to pilot an online school admissions system is a welcome step forward.
Done properly, it could reduce paperwork, improve transparency, provide real-time oversight of school placements and spare parents the annual frustration of queuing outside schools for hours.
However, and it is a big however, digitalising the admissions process is only one part of the solution.
Education MEC Fundile Gade deserves credit for acknowledging that the province has studied the experiences of Gauteng and the Western Cape before launching its own system.
That honesty is refreshing because both provinces have shown that while online admissions offer significant advantages, they can also become a source of immense anxiety when the system is not properly managed.
Over the years, parents have complained about delayed placements, website glitches, uncertainty over applications and children being allocated to schools many kilometres from their homes.
“We have to learn from what then transpired in their own challenges of the online system,” Gade told a media briefing this week.
“Hence, we have created a hybrid [model] so that those who apply online can be afforded [the opportunity] to do so, but also those who apply manually must also be afforded to do so.”
The lessons learnt from the two provinces matter because the Eastern Cape faces an even greater challenge.
Unlike Gauteng or the Western Cape, large parts of the province are rural, with unreliable internet connectivity, limited digital literacy and communities where access to computers or smartphones cannot be taken for granted.
That is why the department’s decision to adopt a hybrid model deserves support.
But a hybrid system also creates new responsibilities.
Every official must understand the process. Every school administrator must be properly trained.
Every district office must have staff capable of assisting parents who cannot navigate the online platform.
Information campaigns cannot begin after applications open.
They must start months beforehand, in people’s home language and through every available channel.
The department also needs contingency plans.
Systems crash. Internet connections fail. When that happens, parents should not become casualties of technology.
The Eastern Cape has the advantage of learning from provinces that have already travelled this road.
It would be a costly mistake to repeat the same errors.
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