TVET college certificates backlog being cleared, says department

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The certificates backlog has compromised prospects for employment or further education for many graduates and has raised questions about the quality of SA's college sector.

The number of outstanding certificates has been reduced significantly from the 236,821 recorded in August 2015, to 29,583. The department said the issuing of outstanding certificates was being hampered by data problems at TVET colleges. These included data-capturing errors, authentication of identity numbers and other personal information, said department spokesman Madikwe Mabotha.

He said TVET college principals had been engaged in a process to validate and confirm all preliminary examination data from the examination centres.

The problems besetting the sector are likely to hamper the government's efforts to make colleges an attractive education choice as part of its plan to ease pressure on universities.

Mabotha said more than 2-million subject results for the November 2016 exams had been processed and released. The final outstanding and pending results were released to TVET colleges earlier in March.

"This means that all outstanding November 2016 results have now been released.

"In addition, a further 450 subject results that were suspended due to suspicions of acts of dishonesty have also been cleared following thorough investigations. These results will be processed and released within a week," said Mabotha.

Working together

The department would continue to work closely with college principals to ensure data capturing challenges, which had contributed to many of the delays in the past, were immediately resolved, he said.

Mabotha said principals would be required to validate all preliminary examination data prior to submission.

"The department acknowledges the key role played by both the State Information Technology Agency [Sita] and the quality assurer, Umalusi, in ensuring the speedy finalisation of the results for the November 2016 examinations," he said.

Sita, which is responsible for issuing certificates, has previously blamed the backlog on outdated IT systems not aligned to diploma and exam rules introduced in 2010.

TVET successes

Meanwhile, during a question and answer session in Parliament on Thursday, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa said TVET colleges were beginning to record "great successes balancing theory and practicals".

"We are seeing a great improvement in the take-up of artisan training among young people, particularly those who go to TVET colleges," he said.

Ramaphosa said the government was finalising an agreement with the private sector that would see as many as 1-million youths being offered paid internships in companies.