TVET certificates backlog to be cleared within six months
The intervention of the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training has led to the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) committing to clearing the TVET certificates backlog by January 2016.
This emerged during a follow-up meeting at which the Committee was briefed by the SITA on the progress made in clearing the National Certificate Vocational [NC(V)] backlog which stood at 192 000 in June this year. Since the “Backlog Elimination Project” commenced on 27 July, the latest figures provided by SITA indicated that 129 932 certificates were outstanding as at 6 August.
While the SITA had initially committed to eradicating the backlog within 12 months when briefing the Committee in June, this has since been revised at the Committee’s insistence and at this morning’s meeting a new deadline (January 2016) was set.
Committee Chairperson Mrs Yvonne Phosa said: “The bottom line is that we would like to see the certificates backlog being cleared and to have a zero certificate backlog thereafter. We are all sharing the same sentiment that a zero certificate backlog will be in the interest of the country.
“We must commend the SITA for actually implementing the resolve of the Committee to reduce the period of clearing the current backlog from 12 months to six months.
“We must also commend the good working relationship between SITA, Umalusi and the Department of Higher Education and Training through a collaboration that will lead to us seeing results even beyond January 2016. Their realignment is key in making sure that they don’t work in silos but move in the same direction,” she said.
Mrs Phosa further urged all public and private colleges that still owed Umalusi certification fees to settle these. The Committee further asked the SITA to submit monthly reports indicating the statistical progress made in clearing the backlog.
Enquiries:
Elijah Moholola
Tel: 021 403 2311
Cell: 081 509 1889
E-mail: emoholola@parliament.gov.za
