Pretoria - Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation Dr Blade Nzimande has warned students and parents to be wary of illegal or “fly-by-night” colleges looking to take advantage of the last-minute rush to register for studying further in 2023.
With the results of the 923 460 full time and part time learners who wrote the 2022 National Senior Certificate exams being released less than two weeks away, scores of hopeful learners, parents and guardians, will be looking for spaces to study further this year.
With this in mind, the minister said it was often the time that bogus institutions took advantage of desperate parents.
“These institutions lure and mislead future students into believing that these colleges offer qualifications that are recognised by the SA Qualifications Authority (Saqa). These illegal colleges offer compromised qualifications which are not recognised for employment purposes or for further studying,” said Nzimande.
Although the department was successful in shutting down some illegal operators, and hard at work at eliminating unregistered colleges, he said, there were still many students who continued to register with “bogus” colleges and were unlawfully granted the fake qualifications afterwards.
Nzimande said the department was working closely with law enforcement agencies to close down the colleges.
“The number of colleges that are operating illegally has decreased tremendously over the years.
“The decrease can be attributed to our monitoring awareness campaigns and our collaboration with both print and electronic media.”
Pretoria News