Investigations by Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) into how a bogus diploma in traumatology was offered without it being registered with the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) are continuing. The course was cancelled after administrators discovered that it was not registered.
According to the head of an academic planning office of a traditional university, “any cautious institution should not start offering a qualification before it is approved by the education department and is accredited and registered by the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC) and the South African Qualifications Authority (Saqa)”.
The process of programme accreditation and registration is as follows:
The senate of an institution must approve the qualification. TUT would have needed to have supplied this information (date of approval by senate) on its applications to the education department.
Public providers of higher education need to obtain regional clearance — they ask other publicly funded universities in their “region” — if they would regard the introduction of the new qualification as “unnecessary duplication”.
Public institutions are already “registered”, but they need to apply for a new qualification to be added to their programme and qualification mix. Each public provider has approved qualifications in subject matter areas in which they teach and therefore can claim subsidy. The education department also considers the regional clearance views. So the department would have needed to have approved the diploma as part of TUT’s programme qualification mix. A letter from the department would have told TUT to ensure that it got HEQC accreditation and Saqa registration.
The HEQC must accredit the programme which leads to the diploma. The HEQC focuses on the capacity of the institution to offer the actual “programme” of a qualification — are there enough staff, are they adequately qualified, what library and IT resources exist for the programme, what are the learning outcomes, and are the assessment methods designed to meet the learning outcomes?
All higher education institutions use the same process, directed by the programme accreditation framework and criteria of the HEQC.
Saqa must register the qualification on the NQF and/or record the programme on the National Learner Records Database. So TUT should have obtained a record number from Saqa.