The Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) recently held its first media briefing in preparation of the 2023 academic year.
Recently, the department reflected on the progress that has been made in Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Colleges and revealed that a total of 166 184 students enrolled for the year-end 2022 National Certificate (Vocational) level 2-4 examinations, but only 133 442 candidates wrote during this exam period.
According to the department, this indicated a 3,7% decline compared to the cohort that sat for its year-end 2021 examination. In a statement, Higher Education Minister, Blade Nzimande said:
This is a matter of concern to the Ministry as our country needs much greater throughput from this crucial sector.
Some experts have mentioned that South Africa suffers from a shortage of skills such as engineering, manufacturing, construction, agriculture, that will build a strong economy and a significant number of TVET Colleges do offer programmes that solely focus on nurturing these skills.
The cohort of students that sat for the November 2022 exams had more female candidates (72,1%), than male candidates (27,9%).
The majority of candidates fell in the 19-24 age group made up 64,7%, followed by the 25+ age group which comprised 33,7% and the 15-18 age group represented only 1,5. Nzimande has confirmed that this distribution of candidates according to age groups has been stable over a period of two years.
Here's the student percentage distribution in provinces in 2022:
- KwaZulu-Natal - 21.8%
- Gauteng - 19.9%
- Limpopo - 17.2%
- Eastern Cape - 12.4%
- Free State - 4.9%
- Northern Cape - 0.9%
The department also had a decrease of 4.6% in the total number of 898 901 subject entries enrolled for the November 2022 NCV.
When it comes to attending to queries relating to outstanding examinations results and certification, the department has urged candidates to lodge any TVET exams or certification related enquiry, by making use of its Exams e-query solution for colleges.
