Qualifications cons may soon be named
The Department of Higher Education and Training has taken its first steps towards naming and shaming fraudsters with fake qualifications and is proposing that details of dodgy institutions and individuals be disclosed in a register.
The Department of Higher Education and Training has taken its first steps towards naming and shaming fraudsters with fake qualifications and is proposing that details of dodgy institutions and individuals be disclosed in an online register.
The measures are contained in the draft National Qualifications Framework Amendment Bill, currently before Parliament.
The bill is aimed at tightening the noose on institutions offering bogus qualifications and individuals who fake or misrepresent their accomplishments, and is a response to the problems confronting employers and education institutions.
It paves the way for the South African Qualifications Authority (Saqa) to publish a register of offenders and compels education institutions and employers to report fraudulent or misrepresented qualifications to the authority, the department’s Shirley Lloyd told Parliament’s portfolio committee on higher education on Wednesday.
There have been a host of recent public scandals over senior executives and top politicians with bogus qualifications, such as former SABC chairwoman Ellen Tshabalala, who claimed to have a BCom and postgraduate degrees from Unisa, and former Passenger Rail Agency of SA chief engineer Daniel Mtimkulu, who was fired over a fake engineering degree. Former arts and culture minister Pallo Jordan resigned as an ANC MP in 2014 after he was exposed for misrepresenting himself as “Dr” when he did not have a PhD.
A 2015 government audit found 640 public servants had false qualifications and 237 more had qualifications that could not be verified.
Saqa had recorded 1,276 fake qualifications at the beginning of 2017 of which 444 were national and 832 foreign qualifications, ANC MP Julie Kilian said.
The draft National Policy on the Misrepresentation of Qualifications, which had also proposed setting up a public register of individuals and providers who had misrepresented or faked qualifications, had been withdrawn on legal advice, said the department’s chief director for legal services, Eben Boshoff.
The draft National Qualifications Framework Amendment Bill was released for public comment in 2016 and 48 submissions were received from interested parties, Boshoff said.
DA higher education and training spokeswoman Belinda Bozzoli was sceptical about the likely impact of the bill. “I have a feeling this won’t make much difference. No one will drive fraud charges. Small institutions will just fire people,” she said.
Committee chairwoman Connie September urged the department to do more to raise public awareness about fly-bynight institutions offering bogus qualifications. “We are not convinced punishing people alone will solve the problem. Young people need to know what to look out for,” she said.