Makashule Gana: DA Youth demands action on unaccredited courses

The DA Youth calls on the Council of Higher Education to intervene immediately after reports that South African universities are still continuing with the practice of offering unaccredited degrees and courses to students.

I raised this very issue with South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) in November last year after an  outcry about the low number of African charted accountants.  From our discussion, I learned that the accounting degree, or BCOM, a staple university degree, of four large, public universities, namely; University of Limpopo, University of Venda, University of Zululand and Walter Sisulu University, are not accredited by SAICA.

What this means for the majority of students who enroll at these universities, is that they must enroll for a further bridging course at an accredited university before pursuing their dreams of becoming charted accountants. There is no guarantee that a student that graduates from any of these four public universities will be accepted by an accredited university for a bridging course. I wonder if the students are informed that their BCOM degree is not accredited by SAICA before they enroll in one of the listed four institutions? What I found to be a concern from my discussions with SAICA is that most of the issues that prevent the degrees from being accredited can be sorted by a willing administration and university council, yet they have still to date not been dealt with.

We will be writing to the South African Qualifications Authority to ask that they urgently release a full list of all unaccredited courses currently being offered to students so that we can ascertain the extent of this issue. As the DA Youth we will ensure that students are made aware of these courses and will lobby the Council of Higher Education to resolve the accreditation issues so that students may study safe in the knowledge that they will be able to use their qualification after graduation.

Media enquiries:

Makashule Gana

DA Federal Youth Leader

082 773 4755

Aimee Franklin

National Youth Director

072 232 0127