The chair of parliament’s portfolio committee on higher education and training on Thursday drew attention to the pressure for first-time university places and urged the matric class of 2025 to consider alternative post-school opportunities.
Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and Community Education and Training (CET) colleges should not be seen as a last resort but as providers of skills that lead to jobs or self-employment, said Tebogo Letsie.
“Artisans are almost 99% guaranteed of employment,” he said.
More than 345,000 matric candidates who wrote the national senior certificate exams administered by the basic education department last year achieved a bachelor’s pass ― the minimum threshold for university entrance — slightly higher than the 337,158 last year.
A further 15,500 students who wrote exams administered by the Independent Examinations Board achieved entry to degree study.
Yet SA’s 26 public universities have only about 235 000 places between them, a figure that has not changed since last year.
TVET colleges have 170,000 places while CETs have a further 130,000.
The numbers were constrained by the government’s budget allocation to the higher education sector, which limited the number of bursaries that could be provided by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) and grants to institutions, he said.
School leavers could also explore skills development programmes accredited by the Sector Education and Training Authorities (Setas), he said.
In addition to technical and vocational training courses, school leavers could also consider private universities, said Letsie. He advised students to check these institutions were registered by the department of higher education & training and urged the police to crack down on unregistered fly-by-night operators.
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