Durban - AS universities across the province process hundreds of thousands of student enrolment applications, institutions are offering a number of alternatives to those who did not make the cut.
One of the alternatives suggested is Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges.
However, TVETs suffer from a bad reputation and are looked down on despite these recommendations.
“Unfortunately, TVETs have a bad image and are sometimes seen as the place where less intelligent people go. This perception is totally untrue,” said education expert Jackie Carroll.
She said TVET colleges should also make sure they promote themselves as they provide good workplace exposure.
“It is this exposure that gives students opportunities that could result in them getting jobs,” she said.
Lusami Netshitomboni, Unisa’s acting head director for communications, marketing and events, said it sometimes advised students to go to TVET colleges, but this would be dependent on the planned career path.
Unisa also advised unsuccessful applicants to return to school and improve their matric results.
Netshitomboni said Unisa had spaces for 376000 students for the 2020 academic year and thus far had registered about 195000 students with 125887 being new applications.
Ashton Bodrick from the University of KwaZulu-Natal said they had received 106270 applications with only 9043 spaces available for first-time undergraduate applications.
Xolani Kunene, head of administration in admissions at Mangosuthu University of Technology (MUT) said they encouraged prospective students who did not qualify to go to TVETs and also sometimes told them to improve their matric results.
“To those wanting to enrol for the Engineering programmes, we advise them to apply for mid-year enrolment,” he said.
MUT observed that many matriculants had only applied to university after receiving their results and
passing well.
“This effectively made them walk-ins, who we do not accept,” said Kunene.
The Durban University of Technology said it had received 114823 applications and only had space for 8536 first-year students.
Noxolo Memela, DUT communications manager, said registration began on Monday and would continue until January 31.
“DUT will not accept walk-in applications. All applicants who did not apply for DUT programme/s are advised that applications are currently closed.
“Should there be spaces, late applications may be considered with no guarantee of acceptance,” she said.