Plenty of students might find themselves stranded following the Department of Higher Education and Training’s decision to deregister Damelin, City Varsity, Icesa City Campus, and Lyceum College as private higher learning institutions.
According to a statement published in the Government Gazette on Friday, the department’s director general, Nkosinathi Sishi, revoked the registrations because the private institutions had not submitted audited financial statements since 2020.
Financial statements from private tertiary institutions must be submitted to the department as part of the accountability process, as per the Higher Education Act.
Educor, the biggest private education provider in Southern Africa, owns Damelin, City Varsity, Icesa City Campus, and Lyceum College. It oversees ten educational brands across more than sixty campuses and locations both domestically and abroad.
According to the South African Union of Students spokesperson, Asive Dlanjwa, the department made the right decision for the students.
The department has reportedly been in the process of deregistering Educor’s private institutions since July 2023, but the final decision was made on Friday.
“These institutions should probably not be reregistered again because there has been no management or governance structure for the last two years to three years, so these institutions have completely failed, they have been given an opportunity to correct and restore the credibility of the institution and have failed,” Dlanjwa stated.
The non-payment of salary to staff at campuses across the country led the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) to report maladministration at Damelin and its sister colleges (ICESA, Lyceum, and Central Technical College) in November 2023.
The private institutions have the obligation to assist students with their registration process at other higher education institutions and to also provide them with recourse and academic transcripts.
The student union has asked for calm among the students and has clarified that those who have already obtained qualifications are unaffected by the deregistration.
Educor has not yet commented on this issue.
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