Pretoria – EFF councillors, student representatives and Thuto Bophelo Nursing Academy management remained at loggerheads by the weekend after a week of protests over fraudulent qualifications at the Pretoria college.
Stakeholders, including the Health and Welfare Sector Education and Training Authority (HWSETA), met on Friday to resolve the issues, but failed to agree on admitting to the fraud or requests for reimbursements.
“The nursing academy has not yet received written communication from the South African Nursing Council regarding the recognition of the community health care worker course,” said Pieter du Preez, the academy’s boss.
Struben Street and Thabo Sehume were partially closed, and traffic disrupted when students protested, burnt tyres and carried placards outside the college last week.
They accused the academy of allowing them to study for up to three years for courses not recognised by the nursing mother body.
Some said they had paid up to R60 000 in that time, only to discover that they would not be able to work in the country.
Du Preez said the nursing courses at the centre of the controversy were HWSETA-accredited and this brought the authority’s representatives into the fray.
They took college management, EFF members and student representatives on a mission to verify the legitimacy of the qualifications.
They reported back to say they were not, sparking a fresh spurt of protests on Thursday.
The students were told that Du Preez would refund them, but on Friday he said he could not.
“I am not in a position to refund students; I am waiting for feedback from the South African Nursing Council,” he told the meeting.
He was also waiting for his legal team to confirm the reimbursements, he said.
Du Preez told the delegates that his board had advised him that all qualifications were in fact legitimate, and that information to the contrary was not reliable.
Thabo Matjabe, who is an accreditation manager at HWESTA, lambasted Du Preez for using its name to defraud students.
He said his institution only accredited programmes focused on skills development and not nursing. He said the students would have to be refunded.
Tshwane EFF regional deputy chair Mo-Afrika Mobogwana said they had found the South African Nursing Council has phased out the two-year nursing diploma in 2014.
“But the institution continued to offer the qualification even after that," he said.
The party's councillor Sipho Tshabane said it was important for Du Preez to repay the money.
The college had wasted both time and money, he pointed out.
The South African Nursing Council confirmed that it had discontinued the courses in question, saying communication to that effect had been sent to the national and provincial health departments and all nursing education institutions, both public and private, and other stakeholders.
The Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA had also become aware of students being affected by the fraudulent qualifications.
EFF councillors and students resolved to take Du Preez to the high court in Pretoria.