The State IT Agency (SITA) will take at least a year to clear the backlog of certificates owed to technical vocational education and training (TVET) graduates, the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training heard yesterday.
Last week, it emerged that more than 103 000 certificates have still not been issued to TVET graduates for the period 2007 to 2011.
SITA CEO, Dr Setumo Mohapi, said the agency, which provides IT services to government departments and is tasked with producing the certificates, would clear the backlog in the next 12 months.
During a presentation to the portfolio committee last week, the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) said the delays in issuing the certificates were due to the instability of datasets submitted by SITA to Umalusi, which were subsequently rejected by the quality assurance and certification body.
Furthermore, the department claimed inadequate IT systems at SITA and the allocation of insufficient human resources by the agency for the National Certificate Vocational qualification and TVET College examination system resulted in delays.
The outstanding certificates are owed to candidates who have completed their qualification across more than one examination cycle, the DHET said.
"[This is] due to the examinations information system being unable to combine the subject results from different examination cycles when a candidate qualifies for certification," the DHET stated in its presentation.
Yesterday, Mohapi also revealed SITA has limited project management capacity and will have to employ a service provider to assist in clearing the backlog. The portfolio committee requested SITA returns within a month to present a clear project plan on how it will deal with the issue.
Lack of will
Meanwhile, the Democratic Alliance (DA) is critical of how SITA has handled the certification backlog until now, saying it has not been treated as a standalone priority project, but has rather been managed as a maintenance matter.
"This shows a distinct lack of will to provide graduates with the means to improve their lives through better job opportunities," says DA shadow minister of higher education and training professor Belinda Bozzoli.
"This effectively means, since the DHET first raised the issue four years ago, nobody has been specifically tasked with addressing the backlog in issuing certificates."
Bozzoli stated the DA will critically scrutinise SITA's plan when it becomes available and monitor the agency against the plan over the relevant period.
"Dr Mohapi might have good intentions, but it remains to be seen whether he will be able to deliver on them, given what appears to be a moribund, dated organisation with limited skills and poor organisational structure," she adds.
Bozzoli notes, while the DHET has previously claimed that graduates may request a letter of proof of their qualification, employers or other tertiary institutions are unlikely to accept such letters repeatedly. "The fact of the matter is that government's inability to issue these certificates has blocked many young, qualified South Africans from entering the job market and is unacceptable.
SITA spokesperson Lucky Mochalibane did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication, but stated previously that the agency is working on a statement.
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