Education body Umalusi has told parliament it currently has no backlog of unprocessed certificates received from the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), placing the blame for outstanding certificates on systemic issues across the post-school education and training sector.
Presenting to the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education on Wednesday, Umalusi outlined the current status of certification backlogs in the post-school education and training (PSET) system and detailed the key obstacles delaying the issuing of certificates.
Outstanding certificates linked to compliance failures
According to the education quality assurance body, most outstanding certificates relate to the DHET’s “non-compliance with directives for certification”, unresolved irregularities, incomplete subject combinations and ongoing information and communication technology (ICT) system problems.
Umalusi said it “has no backlog of unprocessed datasets received from DHET”.
However, it added that certification delays persist because of several factors, including “full certificates requiring subject combinations”, “non-compliance with pre-requisites (NCV)” and “results/irregularities that have not been finalised”.
The organisation also cited ICT system challenges affecting certification processes.
Qualification-specific delays
Umalusi highlighted several qualification-specific challenges affecting National Certificate (Vocational) [NC(V)], NATED and General Education and Training Certificate (GETC) programmes.
For NC(V) qualifications, the body pointed to “rejected or non-submitted corrected datasets by the DHET”, as well as delays in consolidating subject certificates into full certificates.
It also noted that irregularities involving the 2025 NC(V) Level 4 cohort had not yet been finalised, meaning the data had not been certified.
For NATED (N3) qualifications, Umalusi said some certificates were “not issued despite regulatory compliance”, including cases involving three-subject N3 certificates.
The body further stated that several records had not been submitted for certification and that the manual application process for subject combinations continued to slow down progress.
Regarding GETC qualifications, Umalusi said there were “large volumes of outstanding certificates” linked to the transition from the Department of Basic Education to DHET oversight.
It also cited the absence of “automated consolidation of learning areas into full certificates”.
‘Backlog day zero’ depends on joint action
Umalusi said achieving “backlog day zero” would require a coordinated effort between DHET, the State Information Technology Agency (Sita) and Umalusi itself.
The organisation said timelines “need to be measured in months and not years”.
It added that progress depended on “submission of compliant data by DHET”, the resolution of outstanding results and irregularities, automation of certificate combination processes and ICT support from Sita.
Umalusi said it continued to provide technical support to DHET to identify qualifying candidates, resolve rejected records and process certification requests.
The body concluded that the backlog was “systemic” and driven mainly by “manual and legacy processes for certification combinations”, historical irregularities and late or non-submission of datasets.
“Achieving ‘backlog day zero’ requires decisive inter-agency action, system automation, clear accountability and dedicated resources from Sita,” Umalusi said.
