Sunday Independent reports that there are growing concerns over the ability of the SA Qualifications Authority (SAQA) to fulfil its role of registering qualifications.
The statutory body also fights qualification fraud and corruption through verification of national qualifications in government department and national entities. Anxious employees claim that workers have been let down by Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, Blade Nzimande, by him not supporting SAQA financially. This resulted in the retrenchment of 88 employees – almost half of the staff complement – earlier this month. The streamlined organisation will seemingly struggle to keep afloat in terms of its mandate. Last week, SAQA informed stakeholders that it was going through a transitional period, which had resulted in some delays in the processing of SA and foreign applications. According to legislation, Nzimande is responsible for ensuring that SAQA is adequately funded, but according to employees, the minister failed to fulfil his duty over many years, thus forcing the body to raise increasing amounts of money through providing services to the public. SAQA will have to contend with further cuts of about R15-million and R20-million over the next three years. Acting CEO Julie Reddy said currently it was difficult to predict the impact of retrenchments on the organisation, as a consultant would be monitoring the implementation of the new structure over the next few months and help management to identify gaps.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Edwin Naidu on page 9 of Sunday Independent of 16 May 2021
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