The Central Application Clearing House (CACH) is an important service which helps individuals secure placement at a university or TVET college. Prospective students can sign up and be added to a database to which institutions have access, to grant registered individuals a study offer.
CACH has been instrumental in placing students at institutions of higher learning around South Africa. However, in an effort to enhance the placement of individuals at institutions of higher learning, soon, the Department will introduce the Central Application Service (CAS).
Careers Portal spoke to Matthew Makgopela, a project coordinator at the Department of Higher Education and Training to learn more about CAS and how it will work.
The CAS service aims to simplify the university and college application processes, cut costs by allowing multiple applications at once, offer institutions and applicants information on available programmes, provide career guidance, and help monitor equity demographics for the higher education department and institutions.
The CAS pilot was launched on 1 March 2022 and at present, five universities and fourteen TVET colleges are utilising the CAS pilot system after having signed the requisite non-disclosure and service agreements.
The pilot is ready, it started in 2022. We've got 101 schools now participating, we've got 16 colleges participating, we've got about seven universities participating.
Makgopela explains that CAS operates on a model where students apply for specific qualifications at institutions of their choice. Upon application, students receive either an acceptance or rejection from each institution.
If unsuccessful at all chosen institutions, students then enter the clearing process, where they are given a second chance for admission.
Let's say you applied for for at three universities and two colleges if all of them don't accept you you then would need to be cleared in or given a second chance for admission that's the model of how it works you would apply and then you go onto CACH which is clearing.
Makgopela believes that CAS simplifies the application process for students by consolidating applications and clearing them into a single system. By providing a centralised platform, CAS ensures that no deserving candidate is left without an opportunity for further education. It also promotes efficiency and transparency in the admissions process.
In future, we're looking at people applying when they don't get a place of study they go on to clearing so in future there is not going to be this sign-up exercise.
They are hoping to fully implement the CAS system in 2025.
