Corrections policy
Report an error to hello@findsastatus.co.za with the page address and, if you have it, the official source. Verified errors in a deadline are corrected the same working day, and every correction is recorded in the page's history and shown on the record.
Last reviewed 2026-10-13 · next scheduled review 2026-11-13
Our commitment
Information about a deadline is only useful if it is right, and the cost of getting it wrong falls on the reader - a missed filing, a lapsed licence, an application that arrives a day late. So a correction is treated as urgent work, not as a public-relations problem.
We do not delete a wrong date to make the mistake disappear. A page that was corrected carries the correction, because the next reader deserves to know how reliable the page has been.
How quickly we act
| What is wrong | Target response |
|---|---|
| A deadline, closing date or payment date that has passed or moved | Same working day |
| A figure that affects money - a tax threshold, a grant amount, a fee | Same working day where the official figure is available |
| A date that is wrong but not yet critical | Within two working days |
| A source link that no longer resolves | Within five working days |
| Wording, clarity or accessibility of a guide | Next scheduled review, or sooner if it misleads |
How a correction is recorded
- We verify the official source. If the source confirms the error, we fix the record. If the sources conflict, we publish both and explain the conflict rather than choosing silently.
- The record is updated, not overwritten. The data behind the site is version-controlled, so the previous value and the new value both exist in the history.
- The status is marked. Corrected records carry a "corrected" status and a short note explaining what changed and when - visible on the page, not buried in a changelog.
- Anything that depended on the wrong value is checked too. A date appears in listings, category pages, feeds and possibly a guide. Fixing one and leaving the others is how a site ends up contradicting itself.
- We reply. If you wrote to us, we tell you what we found and what we changed - including when the answer is "we checked and the original was right", with the source we checked.
Conflicting official sources
Where two official publications disagree, "correcting" the site to one of them would be a judgement call disguised as a fact. Instead, the record keeps both positions, names each source, and states which one to plan around. Our current example is the NSFAS 2027 closing date: one date at the ministerial launch, another on the application guide. Both are published, and the safer date is identified.
When we should have known better
If a wrong date caused you a real problem - a late submission, an unnecessary trip, an application you abandoned - say so in the report. It will not change what has already happened, but it does change how we prioritise that class of record, and it is the most useful feedback this site receives.
Systematic failures are disclosed rather than quietly patched: if a category of record turns out to have been wrong for a period, the affected records are reviewed together and the correction is noted on each one.