The Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) is finally on the path to creating space for the Nursing and Agriculture colleges of South Africa.
South Africa is home to 11 Agricultural colleges across eight provinces, while there are 10 Nursing colleges operating as higher education colleges in line with the Higher Education Amendment Act.
The medium term budget policy statement of 2021, which was tabled on the 11th of November 2021, indicated that the colleges of Agriculture would be shifted to national government.
The plan was for these colleges to be declared as Colleges of Higher Education with effect from the 1st of April 2022.
However, that plan has seen significant delays after a meeting in January 2022 with the National Treasury and the Departure of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) deciding to postpone the declaration to the 1st of April 2023.
The reasons for this postponement includes:
- Allowing opportunities for further consultation with provincial departments and Members of Executive Councils (MECs);
- Ensuring compliance with the Department of Public Service and Administration's (DPSA's) transfer of functions guidelines during the transition period;
- Finalizing provincial budgets to be transferred to DALRRD; DALRRD had started the process of reconstituting the six task teams towards the declaration date of 1 April 2023.
With regards to the Nursing colleges, the Minister of Higher Education and Training, Blade Nzimande, was advised in 2011 that to deal with the challenges in the quality of qualifications offered by public colleges under provincial governance, they should be brought into a national competence under the DHET.
Near the end of 2014, the DHET and the National Department of Health (NDoH) established the Joint Health Sciences Education Committee (JHSEC) to deal with all issues surrounding and related to health sciences education in the South Africa, including the issue of Nursing colleges.
In 2015 and 2016, the two departments worked together on a process through the JHSEC that would enable the functional shift of nursing colleges to a national competence.
Since then, a feasibility study was undertaken, and different options were identified. An assessment was conducted on all the public nursing colleges and was finalised in June of 2018.
The status of nursing colleges was then tabled at the JHSEC committee meeting held in August of 2018, and it was agreed upon that a process would be put in place to enable the Nursing colleges to be declared as Higher Education Colleges under the Higher Education Act.
In August of this year, a draft policy was proposed by the DHET to identify the various higher education institution types in South Africa.
A number of public institutions offering formal higher education and training qualifications remain outside the Department’s responsibility posing a risk to institutions such as public agricultural and nursing colleges.
If the draft policy is implemented, Nursing and Agriculture colleges would fall under the requirements stipulated.
