How do I apply for a school place?

When starting the Gauteng Department of Education online registration for your child, you should follow three important steps in the application process. These stages include:

1. Entering the details of the parent/legal guardian
2. Entering the learner’s details
3. Applying to a school

Step 1: Enter details of the parent/legal guardian

• First of all, you have to press the “Apply for 2024” button or click Register when you open the official website of the GDE. You must accept the Terms and Conditions and click Continue to proceed with an application. Then you will proceed to the page is where you would need to type your information.
• When the “Enter Parent/Guardian Details” form appears, you have to fill in every field marked with an asterisk. The required information consists of the municipality, street name and number, your phone number and so on. Then, you will have to enter your South African ID number. You can leave the fields with the landline and email address.
• In the application process, you will have to create a username as well as a password. You will need this password while accessing the main application. The password has to be unique and consist of 8 characters, including a capital letter, small letters, a special character and numbers. Do not forget it, write it down and keep it in a safe place. However, if you forget the password or username, you can reset it.

Step 2: Include the information about the learner

On the next page titled Enter Learners Details you have to:

• Type the information of your child including the fact whether the learner is South African or not, the identification number, province, and the current grade.
• Once you have filled all the required fields, you should click the “Submit Learner Details” button.

Step 3: Applying to a school

Then you should follow these steps:

1. Choose an application option. You will have to select one of the options: home address, sibling, work address, school within 30-kilometre radius, school beyond 30-kilometre radius and school of focus learning. There are also two options that you can use for placement but not for application; they are boarding school and previous school.

• When you select the “home address” or “work address” option, the system will automatically filter the schools and ask you to choose one from the options that are either close to your home or work.
• If you choose the “sibling” option, it is possible to apply to a school where the sibling studies. It is needed to give the information about the sibling including their name, surname and the school.
• If you decide to use the option considering the school within or beyond 30-kilometre radius of home address, the system will provide you with all the schools within or beyond the radius so you can select a certain school.
• The last option you can opt for is “school of focus learning”, the list of such type of schools will pop up. The learner will have to complete admission tests.

You can apply to a maximum of 5 schools per child.

2. After finalizing the application form, you can press “Submit Application”, and the application is made.

3. Then, you will get an SMS that will confirm the successful submission of an application. You would be given a Waiting List reference number that will appear on the screen. The number means that your application was actually submitted. Please check if you get the SMS cause in case you do not receive it, you have to ensure that you have done everything in a proper way.

Note that after you have received the Waiting List reference number, as a parent, you still have the privilege of applying again. After submitting your first application, you will have three options to choose from. You can press “Apply to another school for the same learner”, “Apply for another learner” or the Logoff button.

There are six types of Waiting List reference numbers that you can receive. They are:

• WA1 – Parent is living closest to the school in the feeder zone
• WA2 – A child has a sibling at the school
• WA3 – Parent works within a feeder zone of a school
• WA4 – Parent’s home address is within a 30-kilometre radius of a school
• WB – Parent’s home address is beyond a 30-kilometre radius of a school
• WA5 – Schools of focus learning

Documents to provide

Once you are done with your online registration for 2022, you would be required to submit the following documents in the school that you chose while applying. The list of all the necessary documents will appear on the confirmation note of application for SA citizens and Non-SA citizens.

Therefore, whether the child is entering into Grade 1 or going to Grade 8, the following are the documents that you will need to submit:

• Your identification document as the parent or legal guardian
• The birth certificate of the learner
• Proof of your home or work address
• Immunisation/clinic document which should prove that the child does not have tuberculosis, tetanus, hepatitis B, polio, measles and diphtheria (if the child is applying as Grade 1 learner)
• If the child is in another school, you will need to supply the most recent report of the child

However, if the learner is non-South African, you should submit the documents including:

• The passport of the parent or legal guardian
• Proof of your home or work address
• The Asylum Seeker or Refugee Permit of the child
• The most current academic report card of the school where the child is presently (if the child is applying for Grade 8)

Make sure that you bring all these documents within the period of seven days of the online application for school admission.

Please note that these are the details of the application process for 2024. The Online Admissions Applications for 2024  were closed. There will be new updates for the GDE application 2024 on the official website of GDE soon. The next application period should be commenced approximately in April or May.

Some applicants may believe that the process of GDE admissions is difficult. However, the truth is that it is easy when you know all of the information about it. Whether you are a South African or not, do not forget that apart from submitting an online application, all of the required documents necessary to be sent to the school are pivotal. The reason is that it determines whether the admission of the child/ward would be processed or not. We hope that this guide will help you to submit the application successfully. And we wish you to accept the placement of your dreams offered by the department where you child could get the quality education.