Chronic unemployment and the fact that less than 25% of last year’s matric class will find employment in the formal sector are reasons why 50 000 school leavers are expected to try to falsify their matric certificates.
Ina van der Merwe — CEO of one of South Africa’s oldest and largest credentials verification companies, Kroll Mie — said 13% of all matric verification queries received by them turn out to be flawed.
”It is common knowledge that subjects such as science, mathematics and accounting are in high demand and it is these subjects that are most often added by job seekers to their certificates. Candidates who failed to get university exemption frequently change their symbols in order to gain university admission,” Van der Merwe said.
She believes that as many as 50 000 of the 440 264 pupils who will write matric this year will contemplate tampering with their matric certificates.
”This is a really bad idea because virtually all academic institutions verify matric certificates either through our company or through other channels and several have started prosecuting aspirant candidates on charges of fraud.”
Frikkie Kotze, spokesperson for the Potchefstroom campus of the University of the North West said, however, it had not experienced a problem as yet.
”Over the past few years we have had a huge increase in the number of first-year applications and so have had to be very strict about whom we choose.”
The university was formally the Potchefstroom University for Higher Christian Education.
Rand Afrikaans University spokesperson Sonya Cronje confessed that in the past the university has been caught, but not often.
”Applicants now go through a reletively stringent selection process,” she said.
But work employers who fall for the ”modified” certificates have little recourse.
Present labour legislation has made it extremely difficult to get rid of an unproductive employee even through he or she may have gained employment through the submission of fraudulent documentation.
Fraudsters often present police with an altered photocopy of a certificate, together with a photocopy of the forgery, for certification. This is then certified.
”Many gullible employers have fallen victim to this ploy and end up giving work to people who either totally failed matric or who obtained much lower symbols,” Van der Merwe said. — Sapa