This year, Higher Education had more than 1.1 million enrolments in the public tertiary sector. In the previous years, Higher Education Ministers revealed that there was a high number of prospective students who preferred enrolling at universities rather than TVET colleges.
Early this year, the department’s Deputy Minister Buti Manamela shared that this is nothing new and it has resulted in high TVET college walk-ins after prospective students had been rejected by universities.
The Professional Provident Society has conducted a survey across all South African public universities, in which it was revealed that 25% of its respondents had lost their confidence in the quality of education offered at these institutions.
In an interview, head of technical marketing at PSS, Motshabi Nomvethe explained:
Firstly, they feel ill-prepared for going into tertiary, which says a lot about what is happening at primary and secondary school levels.
Nomvethe added that once these individuals are then in university, they find that these institutions lack quality compared to international institutions.
To improve the current state, some experts are expecting the government to act, on the other hand, the group believes that this needs a collaborative effort.
For instance, parents and caregivers play their part in finding out what is needed from them by the school beyond the year that the child is in.
