If you want your child to go to a boarding school locally you’ll have to deal with eMAP first. I say deal with eMAP because since the platform went online it’s been plagued with errors and for something so vital it’s a bit strange that it just doesn’t work as optimally as it should. We constantly get emails from parents complaining about errors on the platform and some of these errors are quite worrying, moreso if you’re a parent seeking to log in and secure your child a place.
Let’s talk about talking…
Before we even talk about the errors on the platform the hardest thing is actually getting a hold of the Ministry of Education when it comes to eMAP errors. The ministry really needs some social media pages and a WhatsApp line because a lot of parents find themselves stranded on different stages of the application.
As I mentioned before we get a lot of emails asking for support related to eMAP issues but the only problem is we don’t have a candidate number or centre number and thus we can’t even access the site beyond the login interface.
Anyway, let’s move on…
Login problems
There were a few parents having problems when it comes to even log onto the site. A number of parents were getting an error that said the details they were entering were incorrect even though they were correct. The same parents who got this error would at times re-sign up and during this process, they would be told that an account for those details already exists. Which is which now??
How many schools can you apply to?
The above was the most common question we got. Some parents/guardian were having trouble choosing more than two schools which limits options as there would normally be five. You can see how this error greatly reduces children’s chances of going to the school’s they (or their parents) are targeting. If you’re targeting 5 schools and you can only choose two and both reject the application, ma1 atotanga!
Downtime on the site
Actually getting to the site is similar to rolling a dice. Sometimes you’ll get in without a hitch like I did at the time of writing but other times you won’t get in – which happened to me yesterday. If this was a random site not dealing with applications of thousands of students it would be a frustration one can live with but the fact that it’s so vital one would expect something better.
More flexibility
There have been some reports that from the schools you apply to, once you have been accepted by any of those schools you can no longer be accepted by another. That’s a bit too rigid and maybe it was done in order for people to apply where they want to go but it’s quite a weird restriction.
We called the ministry to confirm whether this was true or not and we will update this article once we’ve heard from them.
Last year we gave some tips on how to have a better experience on eMAP and the fact that most of these tips are still relevant two years after the platform was launched is frustrating.
These are some of the reasons why a number of parents and schools just ditched the platform and they have been going to schools like they used to, It’s not really a seamless process and if the platform is not updated at some point it will be abandoned. The beautiful thing about tech is these shouldn’t be issues that are too difficult to deal with.
4 comments
You are spot on there. Whilst it is a noble idea, the EMAP platform was not well thought out
Thank you for highlighting those issues about emap. As we wait for responses from schools on admission of children for form one vacancies there no indication as to when we should expect responses. It creates uncertainty and anxiety. Can the Ministry of Education say something to the nation.
Who were the developers? Lot’s of tax payer money being spent by Govt on ICT, so much potential, not great results (Zimra, NSSA).
Let me buidl it for them. The developers where not very serious. They need to up their game. The thing is pretty dum, no life in it. Unpleasant. They need to know where top devs are found lol