Pretoria - The State Information Technology Agency (SITA) has committed to clear the backlog of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) certificates by January 2016.
In June this year, the National Certificate Vocational NC(V) backlog stood at 192 000.
However, since the Backlog Elimination Project commenced on 27 July 2015, the latest figures provided by SITA indicated that 129 932 certificates were outstanding as at 6 August 2015.
This emerged during a follow-up meeting on Wednesday, where SITA was briefing the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training on the progress made in clearing the NC(V) backlog.
During a briefing with the committee in June, SITA had initially committed to eradicating the backlog within 12 months, however this has since been revised at the committee’s insistence. During a meeting on Wednesday, a new deadline was set for January 2016.
Zero certificate backlog
Committee Chairperson Yvonne Phosa said they would like to see the certificates backlog being cleared and to have a zero certificate backlog thereafter.
“We are all sharing the same sentiment that a zero certificate backlog will be in the interest of the country. We must commend the SITA for actually implementing the resolve of the committee to reduce the period of clearing the current backlog from 12 months to six months,” said Phosa.
Phosa also commended the good working relationship between SITA, Umalusi and the Department of Higher Education and Training through a collaboration that will lead to seeing results even beyond January 2016.
“Their realignment is key in making sure that they don’t work in silos but move in the same direction,” she said.
Phosa further urged all public and private colleges that still owed Umalusi certification fees to settle them. SITA was also asked to submit monthly reports to the committee indicating the statistical progress made in clearing the backlog. – SAnews.gov.za
