The South African higher education landscape is embroiled in a severe regulatory crisis characterised by a growing rift between professional accreditation bodies and academic institutions of higher learning.
While qualifications in fields such as nursing and dental technology may receive approval from the Council for Higher Education (CHE) and registration by the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA), the accreditation deadlock between professional councils and the universities is a systemic failure that traps students in a “regulatory no-man’s-land”.
Students are increasingly finding themselves unable to practice their profession because professional councils refuse to recognise these same programmes that the unsuspecting students are graduating from at the institutions of higher learning.
The tension is most visible in the health sciences field, specifically in nursing and dental technology as cases in point.
The current dispute between the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) and the South African Dental Technicians Council (SADTC) has left students in professional limbo.
This bureaucratic friction has left graduates unable to practice despite finishing their degrees.
The SADTC suspended the programme citing “hazardous” facilities and historical failures, while CPUT maintains its autonomy and CHE accredited and SAQA approved status, escalating the matter to ministerial levels.
The South African Nursing Council (SANC) has also faced multiple legal challenges regarding its accreditation timelines in recent times.
In the “SANC vs Khanyisa Nursing School” case, the Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed SANC’s appeal, ruling that their refusal to allow a mid-year to start for an accredited programme was “unjust, unfair and discriminatory”.
Students, though not direct parties to the institutional registration and the accreditation process, bear the brunt of these bureaucratic delays and in some cases organisational gross incompetence
Professional bodies often act as though they are exempt from the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act (PAJA), yet their decisions clearly constitute administrative action, they exercise public power and as such they ought to exercise this in a fair, equitable and transparent manner.
Students, though not direct parties to the institutional registration and the accreditation process, bear the brunt of these bureaucratic delays and in some cases organisational gross incompetence.
This unconstitutional gap potentially violates Section 33 (Right to Just Administrative Action) and Section 22 (Right to Freedom of Trade, Occupation, and Profession) of the constitution.
The courts have increasingly intervened when these oversight bodies and councils fail to provide reasonable grounds for accreditation delays or refusals.
And also when they refuse to consider retrospective accreditation, if the due process has been followed to the letter of the applicable legislation, as seen in the SANC vs Khanyisa cases and other cases.
In many other jurisdictions, the dual-accreditation model is managed through more integrated frameworks under a “joint validation” framework and memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the universities and the professional bodies.
They conduct simultaneous reviews to ensure academic and professional requirements are met before a single student is enrolled.
To resolve this chaotic relationship, and eradicating the current silos approach and a separate discretionary hurdle, a new framework should be established under the current framework.
It is proposed that the government should consider an integrated accreditation framework (IAF) by reviewing the legislative mandate of these regulatory bodies by ensuring there is no interference with the university’s autonomy to assess and graduate students in line with the applicable legal prescripts.
There should be a mandatory joint accreditation through the relevant legislation that should prevent the CHE and SAQA from finalising accreditation without a “professional readiness” sign-off from the relevant council through a shared single digital repository portal.
This should be where universities upload registration documents that both the Professional Council, CHE and SAQA can access simultaneously, eliminating “lost” paperwork excuses and ensuring programmes are only marketed once all stamps of approval are secured.
Another downside factor is that the students, who are the very victims of the system, do not have a channel to lodge complaints except the courts which are expensive.
From this premise, it is therefore proposed that the respective Acts must be amended to allow the students (not just the institutions) to lodge grievances regarding accreditation delays and refusals/denials by these professional bodies.
Currently, students are often told they have no locus standi because the dispute is between the council and the university.
It is also proposed that a more efficient and agile alternative dispute mechanism be deployed and considered in resolving these conflicts.
This could be a joint committee comprising higher education, SAQA, department of health, CHE and professional bodies to mediate disputes before they reach the appeal committees and/or courts.
Lastly, it is recommended that a student indemnity fund be established and that institutions hold insurance for programmes in provisional status for the purpose of compensating students if professional registration is ultimately denied, more so if the current system is not rectified.
Advocate Vuyo Booysen is the deputy registrar: legal services and compliance at the University of the Free State and writes this article in his personal capacity.
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