The Department of Higher Education and Training, has embarked on a process to review curricula of programmes offered in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges, in order to ensure their relevance, currency and alignment to needs of industry and society.
Higher Education, Science and Innovation Minister, Dr Blade Nzimande said 22 more subjects have been revised, with the N4 Business and Services Studies subjects being implemented in the first semester 2022 and the N5 in the second semester.
The Minister was briefing media on the state of readiness for the Post School Education and Training (PSET) sector for the 2022 academic year on Tuesday.
“The N4 Engineering Studies revised subjects will be implemented in the first trimester of 2022 and N5 in the second trimester. TVET colleges are continuously updated on the revised subjects and how to access relevant curriculum documents through circulars,” he said.
Nzimande will elaborate further on the revised subjects during the department’s 2022 Budget Vote Statement.
The Minister also noted that the department’s planned 2022 headcount students enrolments into the ministerial approved programmes, stands at 508 000, which is lower than the 2022/21 headcount enrolments funded by the state and TVET colleges from students fees.
“It is also substantially lower than the envisaged enrolment growth expected by the National Development Plan. Therefore, the 2022 enrolment planning for the TVET colleges will only be funded by the State at R14.385 billion with a correlating budget deficit of R165 million or 1.15% funding deficit.
“When it relates to the enrolments themselves, we have implemented a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) with seven sub-processes in all our 50 colleges. We continue to monitor this process through our regional and national office oversight teams.”
Nzimande has appealed to all prospective students who are still seeking spaces within TVET colleges for Entry Level Programmes (ELP) to contact their colleges of choice for available enrolment spaces for the 2022 academic year.
Projected enrolment
Nzimande said an overall total enrolment figure of 1 110 361 has been projected for the 2022 academic year within the public university sector.
He said that first time entering enrolments have been projected at 208 299 nationally with 69 069 of these first-time entering enrolments dedicated to scarce skills areas, and these include 17 085 in engineering; 17 584 in life and physical science; 985 in animal sciences; 209 veterinary sciences; 10 418 human health; and 22 788 in teacher education.
The Minister noted that a considerable portion of the spaces within scarce skills areas require a NSC Mathematics mark of at least 60%.
However, he raised a concern about the need for the improvement in the numbers of students acquiring minimum requirement, as “they are less than the required numbers.”
Central Applications Clearing House
Meanwhile, Nzimande has appealed to students who applied on time for a place at all public institutions but not offered a place to study, to contact the Central Application Clearing House (CACH) for help.
The Central Application Clearing House is a system meant to assist students to access university, college and skills development opportunities following unsuccessful applications before the publication of their Grade 12 results.
The CACH opened on 24 January 2022, following the release of 2021 National Senior Certificate (NSC) results, and will close on 30 March 2022.
CACH services are available from Mondays to Friday between 8am to 6pm, and Saturday from 8am to 2pm.
Students can access CACH through:
• a WhatsApp “Hello” message to 078 776 8660
• online self-service at www.cach.ac.za
• USSD code *134*225#
Source: South African Government News Agency