Malek Helali
Doha
The Ministry of Education and Higher Education has launched a new system it said would minimise errors during students' registrations at schools and ensure all of them have a seat before the start of the 2018-'19 academic year.
The"early registration system" is the product of collaboration between the departments of private schools licensing and information technology. The former has organised a workshop to introduce the new system to the stakeholders.
Department Director Hamad al Ghali said the new system would reduce the challenges faced by a number of schools and nurseries.
The system, he said, would enable parents to know the seats available in a school and where their children stand on its admission wait list.
The main objective of the system is to ensure private schools adhere to their capacity, Ghali said, adding that the system makes sure no school conducts an admission test or interview as long as it doesn't have at least one vacant seat.
"The electronic registration application submitted through the system enables schools to track the applicant's academic transfer history for the last two years, which will assist schools in knowing the student's previous school and academic curriculum in addition to their grade level."
The director urged schools to feed all application requirements into the system and make provisions to notify parents, through text messages, about the admission tests or personal interviews.
Ghali said the schools are required to communicate the results of the tests to the parents for which the schools must obtain and confirm their contact details.
Once a seat has been reserved for a student and fees paid, Ghali said, his or her name would be withdrawn from all other wait lists. However, he said parents should be aware that schools cannot reserve seats for students if they have unpaid fees pending in other schools.