University of South Africa (Unisa) Students who finished their qualifications at the end of 2021 may need to wait a few months before they are awarded.

This is because finished qualifications need to be audited, which is a process of going through a student’s work so far to make sure that the qualification is complete, not just the final round of exams and assessments.

“After the examination results are released, a final-year student’s record is audited by the Directorate: Student Admissions and Registrations and the College of Graduate Studies to verify that the qualification is complete,” an announcement reads.

“The university will commence with the audit of all final-year students’ records after the official release of examination results on 17 December 2021. If you completed your qualification by December 2021, but receive no notification by 28 February 2022, please send an e-mail to DSAR-FIAudit[AT]unisa[DOT]ac[DOT]za.”

This has always been the process at Unisa, but the recent announcement, combined with a few other details, make it worth discussing again now.

The first issue is, of course, the pandemic. With the omicron variant now firmly rooted in the country and South Africa on the verge of another COVID-19 wave, the release of university results and accompanying graduations are always up in the air.

Over the course of the pandemic Unisa has released physical qualifications to students in a number of ways, including by courier, in-person via a ceremony, and in-person without a ceremony to avoid large gatherings.

Those who have now finished their qualification and are waiting for this audit to complete should keep their ears to the ground for announcements on when and how they can obtain their physical documentation saying so.

This will usually be communicated via direct email from the university but students can also check the announcements news page.

These details are also worth discussing now as, even before the pandemic, we have seen students waiting inordinate amounts of time to finally find out the status of their qualifications.

The hard 28th February 2022 date and the contact gives students solid information instead of them simply being left to their own devices.

As we have covered many times Unisa is infamous for its poor communication, so small wins like this are appreciated.