The Higher Education Quality Committee is responsible for quality assurance of private providers of higher education. We asked
Theo Bhengu more about their work in the sector
Q: What has been the Higher Education Quality Committee’s (HEQC) main activities since we last spoke to you in February?
A: Our section – the Accreditation of Private Providers of the HEQC – has been continuing with the evaluation of programmes from private higher education institutions for routine accreditation as well as for re-accreditation.
Some of the institutions that were unsuccessful during last year’s re-accreditation made written representations for the committee to review the decisions before finalisation. We have been processing those representations. Some were successful, but most were not.
The Council on Higher Education (CHE) has published a report called The State of Private Higher Education in South Africa, which synthesises our findings regarding the quality of educational provision by private higher education institutions during the re-accreditation process. We distributed the report widely to private providers and other stakeholders in higher education.
About 21 institutions are up for re-accreditation in 2003 and we are busy evaluating them. There are site visits currently taking place all over the country.
There is also an MBA re-accreditation project currently taking place.
Q: Are you satisfied that there is sufficient progress among private providers of higher education in providing quality courses?
A: As the CHE’s report shows, there are still many problems faced by private providers regarding quality provision. But there are a number of good, quality programmes offered by private providers and, in some cases, universities and technikons can learn from them. On the whole, though, the quality of provision in private institutions needs serious attention.
Q: What measures is the HEQC taking to ensure that private providers deliver quality?
A:The Quality Promotion and Capacity Development Directorate will be holding a series of workshops to build the capacity of both private and public providers in dealing with issues of quality in future.
Furthermore, we train representatives from the private higher education committee as evaluators for the committee. In this way we both increase our pool of evaluators and build the capacity of private providers to deal with quality issues at the same time in their institutions.
Q: There is some confusion about whether courses offered by private providers fall into the further education and training (FET) band or into higher education. What guidelines are there to tell the difference between FET courses and higher education courses?
A: FET refers to qualifications at levels 2 to 4 on the national qualification network. Higher education refers to qualifications from national qualification framework (NQF) level 5 upwards. It is important when learners enrol in an institution to find out the NQF level of the programme they want to do. Not all post-high school education is higher education.
Q: What is the difference between
‘registration” and ‘accreditation” of courses and institutions?
A: Registration refers to the recognition of an institution by the Department of Education against set criteria as a private provider of higher education qualifications. This is a legal requirement for all providers in the higher education band.
In order for an institution to be registered by the department, the quality of its programmes needs to be evaluated – and that is the responsibility of the committee. No institution is allowed to offer programmes at higher education level besides the ones on the registration certificate, which is the final document granting permission to any institution to operate. Without it, the institution should not operate.
Registration of qualifications on the NQF is a South African Quality Assurance (SAQA) responsibility. A qualification gets registered with SAQA against standards set by standards generating bodies.
No private higher education institution is allowed to enrol students until all these processes have been completed.
Q: ‘Articulation” between courses and institutions is an important part of the country’s education philosophy of creating a ‘seamless” system. What is ‘articulation”?
A: Articulation is the possibility that a student carries the credits gained in one programme or one institution to another. This could be from a private to a public provider, between privates, between publics, or from a technikon to a university and vice-versa. If the programmes have been accredited by the committee, students can take their credit anywhere.
Q: Is the system of articulation working?
A: It is not working as effectively as we would want it to. We are still getting complaints from students who are refused admission by an institution because they are thought to be coming from an institution offering inferior quality education. This is clearly because of the legacy of the past. Where such complaints have been referred to us, we have intervened accordingly.