HIGHER Education Deputy Minister Buti Manamela says the department has managed to significantly reduce the backlog for the issuing certificates for candidates in TVET and private colleges.
“We have reduced this backlog to 99.85%, almost to zero,” Manamela said when he was briefing the higher education portfolio committee on Wednesday.
He was leading a team from the department, Umalusi and State Information and Technology Agency (Sita) on the backlog to brief the committee on the issuing of certificates, proliferation of illegal private colleges and quality assurance of TVET examinations.
A presentation from the department showed that there were only 186 outstanding certificates for students who sat for adult basic education and training as well as national certificate vocational examinations dating back to 1992.
The figure was down from 125 277, and 40 084 recorded in February and October 2020 respectively.
Manamela said it was the department’s key responsibility to ensure the National Quality Assurance Framework was in place in order to maintain the integrity of qualifications.
“It is our responsibility to ensure that our institutions offer education and training and that those institutions are properly registered.
“We have made significant progress in the reduction of certification backlogs,” he said.
Manamela ascribed the success to the formation of a team consisting of officials from the department, SITA and Umalusi.
There were also regional teams that addressed the current and future certification matters with a view to strengthen capacity at colleges in order to avoid future backlogs.
“The relationship between the teams has been one of the crucial knots that we had to untie for us to succeed to ensure we reduce the backlog to close to 100%,” Manamela said.
Umalusi council chairperson John Volmink said they were pleased with progress on the eradication of the certification backlogs.
“We are extremely happy with that. Umalusi remains committed to support all efforts from the department and SITA to resolve backlogs of certificates and ensure that the backlog remains at zero.
“However, it remains a big concern that there are students who deserve certificates but are without certificates at this time,” he said.
Volmink noted that they were still grappling with outstanding debts of private colleges as they had previously reported to the committee.
“Certificates withheld due to private colleges in arrears are not regarded as backlog,” he said, adding that they were committed to working with the department and Sita to put a certificate in every qualifying candidate’s hand.
However, Volmink told MPs that there was progress in the development of an online system for the application of replacement certificates if candidates’ certificates were lost or damaged.
“Malusi is in a testing phase. The intention is to deploy the online applications with the start of the new financial year on 1 April 2022,” he said.
POLITICAL BUREAU