USAf: submission on the NQF Amendment Bill Portfolio Committee 5 September 2018

The NQF Amendment Bill, 2018 Introduction USAf submitted written comments on the 2016 Bill. Some improvements have been made to the Bill now before Parliament, but we submit that The Bill as drafted will not achieve its goals; The Bill as drafted will have serious unintended consequences for all employers and for educational institutions

The NQF Amendment Bill, 2018 The Bill seeks to: deal with bogus qualification (i.e., qualifications offered by degree mills); deal with people who claim qualifications that they have not earned; create a SAQA-administered register of professional designations; and Place SAQA at the apex of the NQF by ensuring that advice on the NQF by QCs (CHE, Umalusi & QCTO) is given in consultation with SAQA.

The NQF Amendment Bill, 2018 USAf supports these four objectives; and recognises the importance of a well-maintained National Learners’ Records Database (NLRD)

The NQF Amendment Bill, 2018 USAf recommends that the Portfolio Committee consider the potential limiting effect of the POPI Act. POPIA defines a data subject’s educational status as personal information. USAf believes that this Bill should provide for public access to the NLRD (and to registers of professional designations) so that the veracity of claims to educational qualifications (or

The NQF Amendment Bill, 2018 USAf believes that the Bill is conceptually weak in confusing qualifications with the documents that certify that a person has earned and been awarded a qualification, i.e., with certification; and that the requirement that “employers, education institutions, skills development providers and QCs” check that every qualification presented to them “for the purposes of study, employment, appointment or any other related purpose” is registered on the national learners’ record database and, if not, refer the qualification to SAQA for verification or evaluation is simply not workable and will be ignored.

The NQF Amendment Bill, 2018 Professional designations Professional bodies maintain records of the holders of those who have qualified to use professional designations. Shifting this responsibility to SAQA would be an unnecessary duplication and will lead to confusion between professional designations on the one hand and qualifications (as defined by the NQF) on the other hand. Professional bodies have their own disciplinary processes and may remove a person from their registers; the Bill contains no mechanism for ensuring that the NLRD data on who holds a (current) professional licence is up-to-date.  

The NQF Amendment Bill, 2018 We think that the proposed definitions of “fraudulent qualifications” and “misrepresented qualifications” need attention. Definitions are needed that provide for   bogus qualifications (e.g., the “qualifications” sold by degree mills); fake or falsified certificates, which suggest that the holder has (a) been awarded a qualification where the holder has not been awarded the qualification, or where the purported qualification does not exist; or (b) obtained a professional designation/licence (e.g., PrEng, or CA(SA)) which they do not have. qualifications awarded by education institutions that are not accredited and/or where the qualification is not registered on the NQF; qualifications obtained dishonestly and subsequently withdrawn;

The NQF Amendment Bill, 2018 Similarly, the Bill needs to deal with individuals who hold out that they have qualifications which they do not have (but may not actually submit fake or falsified certificates as “evidence” of these claimed qualifications); individuals who hold out that they have obtained a professional designation/professional licence which they do not have (but do not submit fake or falsified certificates as “evidence” of such claims to professional status); and Institutions, organisations or individuals that issue/sell bogus qualifications (i.e.; degree mills)

The NQF Amendment Bill, 2018 Our contention is that the Bill as drafted does not cover most of these.

The NQF Amendment Bill, 2018 The Proposed S38B The provision) requiring every employer to refer qualifications of employees to SAQA for “validation and verification” is likely to be ignored by employers; if not, it will create an administrative nightmare for employers and for SAQA (which will have to validate and verify each claimed qualification).

The NQF Amendment Bill, 2018 The Proposed S38B creates a parallel onus for educational institutions in respect of the qualifications claimed by applicants for admission.

The NQF Amendment Bill, 2018 Where the qualification has been entered onto the National Learners Record Database (NLRD) this process will be relatively simple though time-consuming and expensive: but the volume is likely to swamp the SAQA office responsible; and many qualifications – including the National Senior Certificate (NSC) – do not get into the NLRD for some months after they have been awarded, with the resultant danger that a person may be reported as having claimed a qualification that he/she/they did not have, when in fact they did have this; Older qualifications (e.g., the Junior Certificate) are not on the NLRD.

The NQF Amendment Bill, 2018 Where the claimed qualifications have been awarded by legitimate foreign providers the process envisaged by the draft Bill is likely to be both time-consuming and expensive. A competitive position at a public university, for example, may attract over 100 applications from all parts of the world, each with multiple qualifications; most of the qualifications of these applicants will not be on the NQF and none of these foreign applicants is likely to be registered on the NLRD. Employers will have to inform applicants that – whatever privacy legislation in their country of origin provides, e.g., the EU’s GDPR – the prospective employer will be obliged to register the data subject and their qualification(s) on the NLRD, presumably with such identifier(s) – passport numbers? – as will make them identifiable to a future prospective employer/educational institution.

The NQF Amendment Bill, 2018 A similar process will be required of admissions officers at universities when considering applications from prospective students from foreign countries: Universities have accepted processes for obtaining transcripts of academic records direct from the institutions that awarded the qualifications. If the Bill is enacted universities will have to have these qualifications submitted to SAQA for verification and evaluation. Nothing will be gained in the process.

The NQF Amendment Bill, 2018 Where the applicant for a place of study claims a South African qualification (e.g., a recent graduate seeking to undertake postgraduate work) the admissions officer will be required to check on the NLRD; but the time lapse between the award of the qualification and updating of the NLRD by the awarding HEI (submissions are made via the DHET by 31 July of the year following the award of the qualification) will be such that the NLRD will not have been updated by the time that the admissions decision is made

The NQF Amendment Bill, 2018 Where the claimed qualifications were awarded (by a legitimate public university/Technikon/technical college, or by one the departments of state that awarded the senior certificate or the junior certificate) prior to the establishment of the NLRD, the process envisaged by the Bill may be extremely difficult to undertake. It is the case that departments of State do not have good records of pre 1994 certification

The NQF Amendment Bill, 2018 Fairness to individuals affected by the process We are concerned about the lack of any form of recourse for an individual who suffers prejudice where a prospective employer (or educational institution) does not find a claimed (and authentic) qualification on the NLRD, and therefore disregards the application.There is no onus on the employer (or educational institution) to go back to the individual and seek an explanation. (In contrast the Bill provides that the SAQA’s verification & evaluation process must conform to PAJA: see the proposed Section 13(1C)).

The NQF Amendment Bill, 2018 Drafting concerns Misrepresented qualifications: these may be presented in bad faith (but see definition which defines these as presented in good faith); and the definition does not cover bogus qualifications; Fraudulent qualification: there is a difference between a fraudulent qualification and a forged or fake document purporting to certify the award of a qualification.

The NQF Amendment Bill, 2018 Drafting concerns continued: 3. The Proposed s3(3) requires that every private education institution .. must be registered with the Department; this seems to require that independent schools must register with the DHET (as well as the relevant PED and DBE?) 4. Proposed s 13(1A)(h): “national hours” should presumably be “notional hours”

The NQF Amendment Bill, 2018 Drafting concerns continued: 5. The proposed S32B(7) requires a court to consider prejudice suffered (by an employer) or gain obtained (by the fraudster) ; it seems to us that potential prejudice and potential gain should also be taken into account, as the sanction should follow early detection as much as subsequent detection. 6. In the proposed s 27(i)(iv) “providers” should be “provider”) (singular syntax follows)

The NQF Amendment Bill, 2018 Drafting concerns continued: 7. The proposed s13 (1B) allows the entry of a qualification into the register where it is found to be a misrepresented qualification or where a court finds that it was fraudulent. This, because of the definition of misrepresented qualification does not seem to provide for a bogus qualification to be added to the register.

The NQF Amendment Bill, 2018 Drafting concerns continued: 8. The proposed s32A requires employers (and others) to check whether a claimed qualification “is registered on the” NLRD and “if not, refer such qualification” to SAQA for verification or evaluation. This is an example of terminological confusion. The test should be two-fold: first, is the qualification registered on the NQF/ NLRD; second is the applicant’s claim to have it supported by the NLRD records? The draft ignores the second, crucial test. And while it specifies what is to be done when the qualification is not registered, it says nothing about the absence of a record confirming the applicant’s claim to have a registered qualificaton.

The NQF Amendment Bill, 2018 9. The proposed S13(1)(l)(iii) adds to the NLRD “(iii) Qualification and part-qualification requirements and other related information” But the Bill gives no indication as to what this means; and “other related information” is vague and may be void for vagueness; or how SAQA will obtain this data and keep it up-to-date in such a way that the requirements in year “n” relate to those who obtained it in year “n” and are distinguished from those applicable to year “n + m”.

The NQF Amendment Bill, 2018 Summary USAf while supporting the objects of the Bill cannot support the Bill as drafted. We believe that it will not achieve much of what it sets out to do and will have adverse unintended consequences for employers, for educational institutions and for SAQA itself. We therefore submit an alternative Bill for the Committee to consider.

Thank you