• Umalusi says a number of students have been enrolling in fake online schools, which make them take old exams and issue false certificates.
• The standards-setting authority says it has not issued any accreditation for an online school in South Africa.
• UCT Online High School receives its accreditation from SACAI, under a license from Umalusi.

Education-standards setting firm Umalusi says it is working with the police on several cases of students being admitted to uncredited “online schools” that offer fake programmes.

Further, Umalusi warns that these instances of false entities purporting themselves to be accredited online institutions are on the increase.

It says that fake schools are circulating falsified documents from Umalusi or emails that describe being accredited by the agency.

In addition, it says, that these bogus online schools are making students write exams using past papers accessed from the websites of provincial education departments.

Past papers as recently published as the year prior can be found per subject on the Department of Basic Education‘s website for free.

Umalusi, which sets and monitors standards for South Africa’s education and training landscape, says it has never accredited an online school.

One online school in South Africa – UCT Online High School – receives its accreditation from the South African Comprehensive Assessment Institute (SACAI), under license from Umalusi.

“UCT Online High School offers the Department of Basic Education’s CAPS curriculum for Grades 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12, and the CAPS National Senior Certificate (NSC) examination, which is taken in Grade 12, is set by SACAI, delivered in SACAI’s examination centres and graded by SACAI,” UCT Online High School spokesperson Darryn Lee explained to Hypertext.

“SACAI issues and verifies all certification, under license from Umalusi.”

Despite this, Umalusi says it has not accredited any other online school.

“To date, Umalusi has not accredited any online school to offer any of its qualifications. In the same vein, Umalusi is not aware of any such institution having been registered by any provincial education department,” explained Dr Mafu Rakometsi, CEO of Umalusi.

Rakometsi says that these institutes are even issuing fake matric certificates with Umalusi’s branding on it. It warns South Africans to not fall for these entities and their communications. Umalusi is the authority that handles the National Senior Certificate (NSC).

“The public is warned that the practice of selling and buying fake certificates is a criminal offence, which is punishable by law.”

Rakometsi adds, “Umalusi condemns this fraudulent activity in the strongest possible terms. All employers in the public and private sectors are advised to verify their current or future employees’ qualifications through the agencies that Umalusi has contracts with.”

It says that you can check which schools are accredited, private or public, here.

[Source – SA News]

[Image – Photo by Thomas Park on Unsplash]