Alternatives to university

Tvet colleges

Rachel Dubazana, manager of the Benoni campus of the Ekurhuleni East Tvet College, spoke to the City Times regarding other options for matriculants.

Dubazana said she encourages learners to consider trade schools as an option, because not everyone makes it into the universities, which have limited space.

“The course fees in Tvet colleges are not that expensive,” she added.

“Deserving learners qualify to apply for bursaries.”

The college offers office administration and management programmes to learners who have passed at least Grade Nine.

Mechanical engineering and electrical engineering are also offered to learners with at least a Grade Nine qualification, though they are required to have passed mathematics and physics.

The following programmes offered by the college can only be applied for by learners who passed matric and qualified to study towards a diploma: management assistant, marketing management, human resource management and financial management.

Need for artisans

“There should be more qualified artisans in South Africa, this is a scarce skill and as a result the country ends up importing people from other countries, thereby closing jobs for South African people,” said Dubazana.

“Artisan training is one of the national strategic priority goals to improve and sustain the country’s infrastructure.

“To those who did not qualify for admission to do a bachelor’s degree or a diploma, it is best for them to go back to school to improve their qualification.”

Private ‘university’

Beside trade schools or public universities, private higher education institutions are another option for fresh post-matriculants.

“There are many thousands of learners with exceptional results who did not land a space at a public university,” said Dr Felicity Coughlan, director of The Independent Institute of Education, South Africa’s largest private higher education provider.

She said while there is no doubt that South Africa needs more vocationally skilled people and that there should be growth in this sector, telling someone who wanted to pursue a degree in commerce or law to rather pursue a technical qualification is not the best or most helpful advice.

Coughlan said the advice currently being provided to young people ignores the fact that their degree dreams can still become a reality at the close to 120 registered private higher education institutions across the country.

These institutions are subject to the same oversight as public universities.

“If a degree is what someone wants, provided it is for the right reasons and not simply to ‘get a degree’, then the fact that the public sector institutions are full need not and simply should not be seen as the end of the road,” Coughlan said.

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