Education certificates 28 years late

Tens of thousands of students are waiting for technical and vocational certificates, with backlogs of more than two decades

More than 40 000 higher education graduates have yet to receive their certificates — some years after they qualified. Engineers, artisans and business students are either unemployed, working at retail stores or about to lose the jobs they have found without their certificates.

This is a problem the higher education minister, Blade Nzimande, has failed to address since he took up his post more than 10 years ago.

The backlog stretches to 1992, leading the minister to say in parliament that he feels “ashamed”.

Yet former students such as Chuma Mfazwe, who is a qualified electrical engineer, cannot find a job. Mfazwe has a seasonal shop assistant job that will end in January after the festive season. She has not been able to find work as an electrical engineer because, four years after completing her studies at Buffalo City College in East London, she has not received her certificate.

Prospective employers reject her statement of results.

“I am now using my matric certificate to get jobs in retail. I started this job last week because it is almost the festive season and the shops are busy. But in January I will go back to being unemployed,” she says. “I am at least able to buy myself toiletries.”

For the past four years, she has made numerous attempts to trace her certificate with the college and department. She emailed the department of higher education, science and innovation and was told that her certificate had been sent to the college. But the college disputed this. She went back to the department to ask for proof that indeed her certificate had been sent, but never got a reply.

Mfazwe is not the only one facing this career-inhibiting challenge.

This week, the Mail & Guardian interviewed dozens of former technical and vocational education and training (TVET) college students who, years after finishing their studies, are still without their certificates. These were stories of hardship, broken dreams and lost hope because the department cannot clean up its certificate backlog.

Others are looking at repeating their qualifications at a university, despite DHET’S stated aim to turn TVET colleges into “institutions of choice for young school leavers” that must be strengthened, as the sector is the “central component” of the country’s skills development system.

Two years after completing his studies in farming management at Ikhala TVET college in Queenstown, Eastern Cape, Mphumzi Dlungane has taken two short courses, which he hopes can finally land him a job. Last month, he finished a short course in health and safety and hopes to get a job in construction as a safety officer. He has given up any hope that he will receive his farm management certificate and now has to find other employment.

He, too, has made several enquiries about his certificate but has been told that it is not available.

“What breaks my heart the most is seeing people I studied with in high school now having cars and progressing with their lives while mine is stuck even though I studied,” he tells the M&G.

Statistics South Africa’s quarterly labour force survey for the second quarter of 2020, released last month, showed that 20.6-million people between the ages of 15 and 64 were not economically active, in addition to 2.5-million discouraged job seekers.

The students the M&G spoke to represent just a fraction of the problem created by the department and the State Information Technology Agency (Sita).

As of 14 October, more than 40 000 certificates are outstanding— across all qualifications offered at TVET colleges. The certificates have not been issued to students even though the department is supposed to issue them within three months of students completing their studies.

Last week in parliament, Nzimande told the portfolio committee on higher education that having led the department from 2009 to 2017 he was “ashamed” that he “could not deal with this problem even then”.

In 2015, during a portfolio committee meeting to discuss the backlog, committee member Sibongile Mchunu implored the department to deal with the backlog as a matter of urgency as many families were relying on students who would not be able to get employment without these crucial certificates.

She stressed that it was important to remember that each of the 40 000 outstanding certificates represented a human being who was trying to improve their life.

“They are trying to take their family away from poverty, and DHET and the other organisations are not assisting them in any way,” she said.

She added that she had no sympathy for those outlining the problems at the institutions that were failing the graduates “but did feel sorry for the thousands of people who were being deprived of their chance to achieve the better life that the government has promised them.”

Since 2015 the department, as well as Sita, have made several commitments to deal once and for all with the outstanding certificates, yet the problem persists. Sita is responsible for collating the data from colleges to produce certificates, which are issued via the educational quality assurer, Umalusi.

The department and Sita have said over the years that an ineffective information and communication technology system was at the centre of the backlog.

However, the department and the agency have also blamed the pandemic, or cited people getting married and changing their surnames, inadequate personnel to deal with the scale of work and even that the colleges were writing too many exams as reasons for their failures.

In 2018, higher education director general Gwebinkundla Qonde said there was a time that the department was too concentrated on solving the backlog of vocational national certificate (an alternative to an academic matric) paperwork and neglected other qualifications.

In February Sita had set itself a goal of eradicating the backlog by 80% in June 2020 under the banner of “backlog day zero”. This was intended to address the backlog dating even as far back as 1992.

But it failed to achieve its selfimposed target, and the latest target is now March 2021.

The department’s chief director of examinations, Violet Tshetlo, also said that because of the lockdown the department was unable to buy the paper used for the printing of certificates. She said there was only one service provider that provides the paper because of its delicacy.

However, some MPS did not buy this excuse. Committee member Tebogo Letsie said it was “sad” that the department “subjected people to poverty and unemployment by not giving them their certificates”.

“People cannot seek employment without their certificates. Certificates are dating back 28 years ago — people have been waiting since 1992.”