The Department of Higher Education and Training has made progress in addressing the certificate and results crisis which left thousands of technical college students in limbo since writing last year’s exams.
Yesterday the department said it had processed and released more than 2 million subject results for the November 2016 examinations.
The outstanding results had been officially released to Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges by March 4.
However, the department was still to finalise the processing of the remaining 30 000 outstanding National Certificate Vocational (NCV) certificates, from a staggering 236 821 in August 2015.
The deputy director-general of TVET colleges, Firoz Patel, said the bulk of outstanding certificates had been due to data problems.
“Problems such as data capturing errors and authentication of identity numbers and other personal information have caused delays,” he said.
Patel said all November 2016 results had been released, including those of 450 subjects initially suspended due to suspicions of dishonesty.
“A further 236 adverse cases are still pending; further investigations are being conducted into alleged irregularities,” he said.
He said TVET college principals had been engaged in a process to validate and confirm all preliminary examinations data from the examination centre.
“This is in order to facilitate the rapid release of certificates in the four examination cycles."
Patel said all processes were on track to ensure the release of all NCV and National Accredited Technical Education Diploma (Nated) Report 191 certificates for the November 2016 examinations by March 31, in accordance with national policy.
“The policy prescribes for the issuing of certificates within three months of the publication of results,” he said.
He said the department was also busy with another parallel clean-up process for outstanding results on the Nated Report 191 examination system prior to the November 2016 examinations.
“It is expected that any outstanding Nated certificates will be released by June 30,” Patel said.
Nated programmes were delivered under the auspices of the Department of Higher Education and Training.
The programmes consists of 18 months' theoretical studies at colleges and 18 months' relevant practical application in the workplace.
“All students are advised to request their results and certificates directly from their respective colleges,” he said.
Patel said the department was also appealing for patience as certificates were released in batches, once they had been approved and processed by the quality assurer, Umalusi.