Damelin, CityVarsity, Icesa City Campus and Lyceum College have been deregistered as private higher learning institutes.
The director-general of the Department of Higher Education, Dr Sibusiso Nkosinathi Patrick Sishi, announced this in a statement posted in the Government Gazette on Friday, citing the private institutions’ failures to submit audited financial statements as the reason for the cancellations.
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According to the statement, Damelin, CityVarsity, Icesa City Campus and Lyceum College all failed to submit their audited financial statements for the 2020 year of reporting as required by Section 57(a)(b) of the Higher Education Act.
As per Mail & Guardian, private tertiary institutions are required to submit financial statements to the department as part of an accountability process.
All four colleges are owned by Educor, the largest private education provider in Southern Africa.
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According to Asive Dlanjwa, spokesperson for the South African Union of Students, the department’s decision was in the best interest of students. ‘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 says the deregistering process started in July 2023. It was finalised on Friday.
The South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) flagged maladministration at Damelin, ICESA, Lyceum and Central Technical College last November due to the non-payment of employee salaries.
At the time, Saftu’s spokesperson, Trevor Shaku, noted that: ‘Damelin, and Educor in general, are denying their employees across the different institutions the opportunity of meeting their spending obligations in their varying manifestation by abusing and disregarding their rights.’
The department’s spokesperson, Veli Mbele, told News24 that the department would not give ‘parallel interviews’ until Minister Blade Nzimande has made his statement.
‘We will do our best to ensure that the minister addresses the queries that we have received from all media institutions.’
Professor Labby Ramrathan from the University of KwaZulu-Natal noted that accountability was key.
‘Strong signals need to be made to protect prospective students. Cancelling registration of these institutions will have a significant impact on current students’ registration and past student/graduates.’
‘For current students, the uncertainty of obtaining their qualifications remains high. For past students, the reputational damage will impact on them.’
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Picture: CityVarsity