Recently, the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) visited four institutions with the intention of shutting down illegal institutions.
It does not end there, but the department’s aim was to also inspect registered institutions, checking whether there are issues of non-compliance and to help them to comply.
In 2018, DHET successfully prosecuted approximately 40 individuals for operating illegal schools.
The department continues on this journey of bringing such culprits to book and constantly checking whether there’s compliance in colleges that are registered with them.
They have confirmed that they are currently working with Hawks, the FBI, and other international law enforcement agencies to identify and expose these individuals.
The first thing that prospective students should do before registering with a private institution, it is to verify whether it is registered or not.
You may start by going to the DHET website to verify whether the institution is registered and whether the programme that you intend on choosing is accredited.
DHET has a list of registered colleges and the programs that the college ought to be providing.
In that way, you will save yourself from being defrauded, wasting your time and money.
According to the Higher Education Deputy Minister, Buti Manamela, most of the culprits that they have managed to bring to book are from different parts of the world, such as America, Europe, and some from parts of the African continent.
In an ENCA live interview, Manamela added:
The public higher education system has expanded over the years but the demand still grows because of the number of learners that have passed matric.
This year, 1.1 million students enrolled in public universities, and more than 300 000 of those are going to community colleges
The high demand is a big challenge for Higher Education as it won’t be able to accommodate the huge number of students who pass their matric to enter public institutions of higher education.
Then this means that there's an opportunity and space for private providers to operate.
