There’s a joint effort to wield the axe on bogus colleges operating in the country. The national Department of Higher Education and Training, officials from law enforcement agencies and Umalusi have pounced on several colleges in Rustenburg in the North West.
Most were found to be non-compliant and lacking accreditation for certain courses.
Officials from the local municipality, public safety and higher education brought to book colleges operating illegally.
“We are already a registered institution. We cannot… We cannot register because we already registered and it was returned. It was this one. All we were told is that we have to submit what is called an amendment because Roseville is a registered institution,” says Patrick Kaddo of Roseville FET College.
“There are about nine schools that we are targeting today to close down because we have done our homework and we are pretty confident that they are not compliant in many ways. We are also concerned that it seems that many of the schools are in fact run by people who are not properly documented,” Rustenburg Municipality Mayor, Mpho Khunou.
Some colleges were shut down and others were warned to update their accreditation or face the wrath of the law.
“We have identified plus minus about six bogus colleges across the country and just this morning, we shut down one that was completely unregistered. Now, one of the challenges we face is that colleges are accredited for some programs, but they continue to offer unapproved programs on unapproved sites,” says Director of Department Higher Education And Training, Dr Shaheeda Essack.
Meanwhile, the future of affected students is now uncertain.
Officials have cautioned prospective students to ascertain that colleges are registered with the department and that they also have the necessary accreditation.
