Technology failure disrupts online application for 2019 Form 1 places

Several parents whose children applied online for form 1 boarding places are in quandary as schools are failing to use the system to enrol students.

Five days after the Grade 7 results are out not even a single secondary school has managed to use the online applications to enrol form 1 pupils.

The schools are neither accepting the alternative manual method as they religiously wait for a directive from the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education. Sadly, nothing is also coming from the Ministry that in itself looks to be running out of ideas. One wonders whether this is not sabotage from former Minister, Dr Dokora and former permanent secretary Dr Utete-Masango who unceremoniously left the Ministry last week.

Whatever, the case may be, Minister, Prof Mavima, and misfiring new permanent Secretary, Tabela, must work up from their deep slumber. Several parents are using their hard earned money to visit schools where their children applied only to be informed that schools are facing challenges in processing the applications.

Why has the Ministry adopted a system it cannot use? Why has the Ministry abandoned the effective manual ways we were using to look for form 1 places when it is so incompetent to put its technology into use?

Several parents have been inconvenienced while uncertainty and anxiety has cropped into many candidates who cannot secure form 1 places because of a dysfunctional technology that further point to incompetence and lackadaisical approach by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education.