Chairperson of the Walter Sisulu University council Tembeka Ngcukaitobi on Wednesday said the accreditation debacle at the institution is “not as big as has been reported and is largely under control”.
Speaking at parliament’s portfolio committee on higher education, Ngcukaitobi said only a handful of programmes, and not 28 as previously reported, are unaccredited.
“What we’ve found is that there are five programmes that are an issue, and two of those programmes were once accredited but there was a problem when they were transitioning, in that documents were not submitted timeously.
The affected programmes according to university management are Bachelor of Science in Zoology, Advanced Diploma in Internal Auditing, Advanced Diploma in Journalism, Post Graduate Diploma in Chemical Pathology and Master of Medicine.
The accreditation crisis has left hundreds of students enrolled in the affected programmes in limbo and those who were scheduled to graduate this month have had their graduation postponed
“The graduation of the affected programmes will be shifted to June until there is full clarification about whether the Council for Higher Education (CHE) and department of higher education & training (DHET) will endorse the request for condonation.”
In an event that the request for condonation is not granted, Ngcukaitobi said they’ve told management to come up with alternative plans though he was confident that the affected programmes are capable of being fully aligned and accredited.
“If they are not endorsed, we’ve asked management to come up with alternative plans about how exactly do we make sure that our students graduate because the priority is the student.”
MPs said the dilemma could have been avoided, and called for action to be taken against those who failed to ensure that documentation for accreditation was submitted timeously.