DHET, SITA, QCTO and Umalusi briefing on certification backlog progress

Video The Committee met in Parliament to assess progress in eliminating certification backlogs and outstanding certificates in the post-school education and training sector, and to hold the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), State Information Technology Agency (SITA), Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO), and Umalusi accountable for the systemic failures still preventing students from receiving their qualifications timeously. Before turning to the certification backlog, the Committee dealt with the postponement of its planned National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) meeting with the Minister on Tuesday (yesterday), which Members treated as a serious test of Parliament’s oversight authority in the wake of the Minister’s decision to dissolve the NSFAS Board and place the scheme under administration. Members were informed that the meeting had been scheduled at the first available opportunity after the Minister’s public announcement, but that the required presentation was not submitted by the agreed Friday deadline, no revised submission timetable was provided, and the NSFAS Administrator only advised at a late stage on the eve of the meeting that former Board members would not be facilitated to appear. Members expressed strong concern that the sequence of events, including the late communication and subsequent public statements, undermined the Committee’s ability to conduct meaningful oversight, created the misleading impression that the Committee had cancelled a meeting for which the Department was ready, and risked normalising executive non-compliance with parliamentary processes on a matter affecting more than one million students. Members further indicated that the  sub judice  argument raised by the Department could not be accepted at face value if it was being used to avoid accountability for the Minister’s conduct and the process followed. The Committee therefore resolved to reconvene the briefing on 29 May 2026, require written confirmation of attendance from the Minister, Department, and NSFAS by the close of business this week, obtain a legal opinion on the  sub judice  issue and the question of facilitating former Board members, and activate the formal summons process if the required confirmation was not received. In the DHET and SITA presentation, the Committee was told that the historical backlog from 1992 to 2022 had been fully cleared, but that significant new backlogs had emerged from 2023 onward, especially in National Certificate (Vocational - NC(V), NATED, and General Education and Training Certificate (GETC) qualifications. The presentation highlighted that the legacy system had been designed around single examination cycles and could not automatically recognise and consolidate results for students who completed qualifications across multiple sittings, resulting in extensive manual reconciliation, delayed certification, and repeated dependence on ad hoc interventions. Members were told that 79 450 NC(V) candidates who wrote in November 2025 had received statements of results but were still awaiting certificates, that the April 2026 target for delivery to colleges had not been met, and that many National N Diploma applications had been declined because workplace experience was either irrelevant, insufficient, or poorly verified. DHET also outlined phased day-zero targets extending to 2029, but Members expressed concern that these timelines were too long, that the system defects had been known for years, and that students continued to lose employment and study opportunities while waiting for certificates. The QCTO presentation emphasised that, within its own 21-working-day certification mandate, it was generally meeting turnaround targets and that the major delays occurred before results reached the QCTO. It reported that the legislated trade certification pipeline should run directly from trade test centres to NAMB and then to the QCTO, but that SETAs had become an additional processing layer not envisaged in the regulations, contributing to serious delays, weak accountability, and fragmented control of the certification process. The QCTO highlighted low compliance with weekly result submissions, the batching of results, weak entry controls linked to serial number delegation, and the social consequences for learners who could not access jobs despite having completed trade tests. It proposed restoring the direct submission model, enforcing declarations and CEO-level sign-off for delayed submissions, and strengthening end-to-end pipeline monitoring. Members welcomed the clarity of the presentation but called for a full written breakdown of the outstanding backlog by SETA and a clearer map of the entire certification value chain. Umalusi reported that it held no unprocessed certification requests received from DHET and stated clearly that the backlog was largely being driven by incomplete or late data submissions, unresolved irregularities, and the absence of automated certificate-combination processes for students who completed across multiple sittings. It explained that the November 2025 NC(V) Level 4 certificates could not be finalised because the irregularities list submitted by DHET did not align with Umalusi’s records, meaning that Umalusi did not yet hold a complete and processable dataset from which to print certificates. Umalusi further highlighted qualification-specific problems in NC(V), NATED and GETC, but stressed that progress to day zero should be measured in months rather than years and would depend on compliant data from DHET, faster resolution of irregularities, automation of consolidation processes, and active technical support from SITA. Members drew a clear distinction between Umalusi’s role in certifying compliant data and the failures elsewhere in the system that continued to block students from receiving qualifications. In the broader discussion, Members stressed that the certification crisis had persisted since the previous administrations of Parliament, despite repeated assurances that day zero would be reached, and that technical explanations could not mask the human cost to students who were losing employment, income, and progression opportunities while waiting for qualifications that had already been earned. Members raised concern that the Department’s responses were at times evasive and that accountability for delays remained too diffuse, particularly where incomplete data was being submitted to Umalusi, where colleges failed to escalate outstanding candidate lists timeously, and where the same system defects had been known for years but still had not been corrected. Members, therefore, pressed for clearer ownership of each point of failure and for consequence management where timelines continued to be missed. A major focus of the discussion was the unresolved status of the 79 450 NC(V) certificates from the November 2025 examination cycle. Members insisted on a firm and publicly defensible date for delivery, rejected any suggestion that certificates processed outside the required turnaround should not be counted as backlog, and expressed dissatisfaction that the Department did not initially state plainly that Umalusi was still awaiting a reconciled irregularities list before the certificates could be finalised. Members also interrogated the deeper design flaw in the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) certification system, arguing that an academic model that explicitly allows students to progress and complete subjects across multiple sittings should long ago have been matched by a certification system capable of recognising the same learner across those sittings. Members viewed the continued reliance on manual reconciliation in 2026 as unacceptable and urged urgent redesign of the underlying business rules and systems. Members further raised the weak performance and chronic underfunding of CET colleges, arguing that poor pass rates could not be separated from transport barriers, food insecurity, inadequate infrastructure, limited lecturer time, and the absence of direct student financial support. Members called for a proper Community Education and Training (CET) turnaround strategy with timeframes rather than repeated descriptions of predictable structural challenges. Concern was also expressed about institutional backlogs at specific TVET colleges, including cases where certificates had reportedly been printed and dispatched but had still not reached students. Members were not satisfied with generic assurances and called for case-by-case follow-up with affected colleges, as well as practical support for students who had secured employment conditional on producing a certificate. Members also focused on the fragmented certification value chain in the trades and occupational system, including the insertion of SETAs into a process that regulations envisage as a direct flow from trade test centres to NAMB and then to the QCTO. Members supported calls for a complete process map showing where responsibility sat at each stage, raised concern about non-responsive SETAs and weak enforcement of submission deadlines, and highlighted the unresolved funding and capacitation gap caused by the incomplete transfer of ETQA functions from the SETAs to the QCTO. Members agreed that the current split of functions was contributing to systemic delay and confusion, and that funding and personnel needed to follow functions if the architecture was to become workable. A further recurring theme was the need for a universal, integrated digital student record and qualification-tracking system, ideally linked to a single identifier, so that records could be recognised across institutions, qualifications could be verified quickly, and students would not have to rely on ad hoc interventions to access certificates. Members linked this directly to the coming shift to occupational qualifications, warning that the sector could not afford to reproduce the same design failures in the new system. The Committee therefore supported a strategic intervention requiring DHET to convene a high-level meeting with SITA, QCTO, Umalusi, and all relevant branches before the end of June 2026 to develop a full process architecture, identify bottlenecks, assign accountability, and report back on solutions. The meeting also noted the adoption of the Committee report on Annual Performance Plans and the programme of follow-up oversight engagements.