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Cape Town - The operating licence of private college Oval International Computer Education has been reinstated by new Higher Education and Training Minister Hlengiwe Mkhize, some 11 months after it was cancelled.
On January 24 2017 the Registrar of Private Higher Education cancelled the institution’s registration, saying it had provided misleading information and had not uploaded a learner’s data onto the national learner records database.
Oval International lodged an appeal in early February, which placed the cancellation of its registration on hold.
Classes didn’t stop at the institute, which has about 1 000 students enrolled at colleges in Durban, Pietermaritzburg, Cape Town and Johannesburg, as the college awaited the outcome of the appeal.
If it had lost the appeal, however, it would likely have had to close down.
In a signed statement dated December 12 2017, Mkhize wrote that “after giving due consideration to all arguments, I am pleased to inform you that I have decided to annul the decision of the registrar to cancel your registration”.
Mkhize wrote that the registrar would be informed of her decision. She added the registrar would also be tasked with making sure that Oval International uploads the information of all students onto government databases in future.
The minister said she has asked the Council on Higher Education to advise the South African qualifications authority on how it works out requirements for student credits and corresponding course levels.
As Fin24 previously reported, according to Oval the dispute that lead to the cancellation of its registration in January concerned "a misunderstanding" regarding the National Qualifications Framework level of accreditation for the college’s programmes, which snowballed into a crisis for the institute.
The reinstatement of the institution's registration was quite a turnaround for the Department of Higher Education.
In November 2017 it was still advising students who have been awarded unapproved diplomas and degrees by Oval International to report the matter to the police's commercial crimes unit.
