Investigating the effectiveness of central application systems in higher education admissions

Background: Applications and admission processes across the globe have been unified using central application systems (CAS). However, the primary CAS in South Africa (SA), including the Central Applications Office and the Central Application Clearing House, are faced with fragmented, inconsistent and inefficient processes. Objectives: Critically appraised, synthesised and examined available academic literature and relevant grey literature to: Evaluate the status of SA’s primary CAS for existing constraints, benchmark these CAS against selected international best standards to identify critical shortcomings and areas of improvement, identify knowledge gaps in current literature relating to CAS’s transparency, collaboration and efficiency and propose actionable recommendations for future research. Method: The review follows a quantitative methodology. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses framework was used. A multi-search strategy including academic databases and grey literature was used with inclusion and exclusion criteria and keywords combined using Boolean logic. The research sums up the data provided by secondary sources quantitatively to detect the prevalence of systemic barriers and the frequency of reported enablers. Results: Main interconnected themes of concerns, transparency gaps, structural collaboration shortfalls and systemic fragmentation were identified, resulting in reduced perceived ease of use. Major equity barriers for applicants are compounded by the digital divide and associated costs, reducing perceived usefulness. Global lessons included integrated ranking mechanisms, multi-institutional coordination, and equity-focused features. Conclusion: South Africa would be served by an effective, truly centralised, transparent and collaborative national application system. Systemic failures were because of the lack of real-time data updates and usability problems. Attention must be given to users’ perception of usefulness and ease of use. Contribution: The study contributed to the literature by laying a foundation for understanding the barriers and facilitators of an end user-focused national CAS in SA.