Parents sending their children into ACT public schools will no longer have to wade through reams of paperwork after the introduction of an online enrolment process.
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Public school enrolments for next year opened on Monday. The new system is designed to speed up the process for both parents and schools.
The old system allowed parents to download the necessary forms from the internet, but then required them to print and fill them out, and return them to their local school.
With the new system, parents just fill and submit the information online.
"[Schools] have already got real-time information about the enrolments coming in, as opposed to waiting until the end of the enrolment period … collating all those pieces of paper together and then working through the process," Education and Training Minister Joy Burch said.
Parents also will not have to repeat the whole process when their children change schools.
"One of the big penny-drop moments was a friend of mine saying her child had been through our education system, been in public schools all her education years, went to change into college and had another 12 pages of paper to fill out," Ms Burch said.
''We can do far better than that for families.''
Linda Lindsell was among the first to test the new system, enrolling her youngest daughter into preschool next year.
She described the previous system as "lots of paper".
"This process was far easier, it did [take less time] - it wouldn't have taken more than 15 minutes, and it's quite a lot of information," Ms Lindsell said.
Families without internet access can still enrol at their local school, using their computers, and Ms Burch said the online system should not stop parents from visiting the school and meeting the principal.
"This doesn't take any need of that away or surpass that personal connection between families and schools, but it certainly makes the process easier," she said.
