Umalusi on issuing of certificates

Update on the issuing of Umalusi certificates

Umalusi, the Council for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and Training, is constantly inundated with queries from the South African public regarding the issuing of the following certificates: The Senior Certificate (as amended) and the National Certificate (Vocational). This statement is an update on the status of certification of the above-mentioned qualifications.

Status of the certification of the Senior Certificate as amended

After the writing of the first amended Senior Certificate examinations in June 2015, the Department of Basic Education amended the policy for the qualification, including changes to the pass and promotion requirements.  Umalusi has yet to receive a copy of the gazette which reflects the changes to the policy.

The admission to Higher Education requirements have not been determined for this qualification, a process which should be completed by the time the policy is gazetted. The Department of Basic Education is in consultation with the Department of Higher Education and Training in this regard.

The system which the Department of Basic Education requires in order to submit requests for certification to Umalusi is not yet ready, although progress is being made.

Umalusi is thus dependent on there being a regulated policy for the Senior Certificate, as amended, published in a government gazette, which should include higher admission requirements, and a fully functional national certification system to submit the results to Umalusi for the final step, which is the issuing of the certificate.

Status of the National Certificate (Vocational) certification

Umalusi has received requests for the certification of learners from 2007/11 to 2015/03 from the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET). More than160 000 certificates of learner achievement have been issued by Umalusi since August 2015.  About 90% of these are subject statements.

These certificates have been sent to the DHET for distribution to the various TVET Colleges. Candidates are therefore advised to contact the TVET College where they wrote their examinations to make arrangements for the collection of their certificates. If the certificates are not available at the TVET College, they must please contact the DHET and not Umalusi. The 2015/11 cohort of learners have not been certified as yet, but these processes are ongoing.

According to the CEO of Umalusi, Dr Mafu Rakometsi, “the process of certification involves a value chain of stakeholders such as assessment bodies who must firstly finalise their resulting data before submission to Umalusi for final certification. The sooner this data is made available to Umalusi in the required format, the sooner we’ll be able to issue those certificates.”

In order for a candidate to obtain an Umalusi issued certificate the following processes must be followed:

1. The candidate must meet the promotion requirements of the qualification as gazetted.
2. If the candidate has met the promotion requirements over multiple examination sittings, the candidate must approach an assessment body and request a combination of their results.
3. The assessment body must submit the request for the certificate to Umalusi.
4. If a candidate has lost their certificate they should contact an assessment body, not necessarily the one where they wrote, for assistance.

Umalusi receives certification data from the following Assessment Bodies:

1. For the National Senior Certificate, Senior Certificate, Senior Certificate as amended and GETC (ABET Level 4): The Department of Basic Education and the 9 Provincial Departments of Education.
2. If you wrote through one of the following private assessment bodies, they should be approached for assistance:
   • IEB
   • SACAI
   • Benchmark
3. For the NC(V) and N3: The Department of Higher Education and Training or the TVET College you wrote the examinations at:

Lucky Ditaunyane
Cell: 083 227 6074
E-mail: Lucky.Ditaunyane@umalusi.org.za