The auditor-general’s office has allowed employees studying an accounting qualification through Unisa the option of de-registering from the university and enrolling at other institutions because of “a number of continued concerns” students have been experiencing.
The students are registered for the postgraduate diploma, Certificate in the Theory of Accounting (CTA), which, if they pass, would allow them to sit for the first of two board exams conducted by the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (Saica) to qualify as a chartered accountant.
Deputy auditor-general Vonani Chauke informed Unisa vice-chancellor Prof Puleng LenkaBula, in a letter dated May 29, that during their meeting on April 11 last year, he had expressed concerns over several matters that included “inconsistent senior leadership/faculty to assist with provision of sustainable support services to the students and stakeholders”.
Other concerns raised in his letter that TimesLIVE Premium has seen included:
- Delays in communication that was affecting the preparation for tests and exams
- Lack of proactive initiatives by Unisa to respond to the poor year-on-year CTA pass rate and the underperformance at Saica ITC (Initial Test of Competence) exam
- Quality of content to support throughput and success in the Saica ITC exams
- Lack of responsiveness to concerns that were previously raised regarding technical issues relating to student administration
Chauke stated that while they invested a lot of time and money to support their Unisa CTA students, “it has come to our attention that our employees continued to experience challenges during the latter part of the 2022 academic year and during the start of the 2023 academic year”.
One of the challenges was that the software used to invigilate the online formative tests and exams resulted in extensive delays.
“There was a number of instances where individuals were flagged for suspicious behaviour, this meant that the instance had to be investigated further," said Chauke.
“These investigations are not concluded timeously, and students continue to write other tests and exams while the investigation has not been concluded. This has created uncertainty and anxiety for the students and, in some cases, delaying their careers and personal situations.”
Another challenge highlighted by Chauke was that the decision to move the planned supplementary exams from January to March was not communicated timeously to the students, and “the impact on the students who were already preparing for the exams was not favourable”.
In the past, candidates wrote the Unisa CTA supplementary exam in January and received their results in early March.
“This would afford them the opportunity to prepare for the Saica June ITC exam. The March supplementary exams and the release of results in May does not afford candidates sufficient time to prepare for the June ITC exam.”
He said students sitting for the supplementary exams experienced numerous challenges which included the Unisa student portal, “My Modules”, being unresponsive, which resulted in students not being able to access their exam scripts to start writing at the scheduled time.
Wrote Chauke: “In summary, the experience and lack of assistance received by the students is creating pressure and unwarranted discomfort to those who are pursuing their studies and inadvertently impacting their academics.
“The 2022 CTA pass rate was also very low, exacerbated by these environmental factors.”
He said the AG’s team has “engaged” with the college of accounting sciences and alerted them to the continuing challenges.
“Our employees have continued to provide us with feedback during this academic year, this feedback indicates that the situation is not improving.”
He told LenkaBula: “We request your favourable consideration and support during the deregistration process, including limiting the financial impact this might have on the students by waiving any penalty/cancellation fees.”
Responding to media queries from TimesLIVE Premium, the AG’s office said in a statement that offering their employees the opportunity to de-register from Unisa “was a temporary arrangement which was taken in the best interest of candidates pursuing the CTA with the university”.
Chauke stated in the statement: “These concerns are not new and are well known to the university. As the leadership of the AGSA [Auditor-General South Africa], we have discussed them with the university management for several years.
“They have, unfortunately, resulted in the AGSA taking a decision to allow our candidates/students to deregister, if they choose so, and support them in finding best alternative institutions while we are working closely with Unisa to address their challenges.”
According to the statement, AGSA recruits 200-400 university graduates from various universities annually.
Since the establishment of its graduate employee scheme, they have assisted to graduate 1,800 chartered accountants, including 500 who qualified in the past two years.
Chauke said that as a caring employer, they continually spoke to all academic institutions they were in partnership with on their educational programmes “to ensure that the quality and performance of our candidates are not compromised”.
He said that “given the persistent challenges at Unisa, we are giving the institution time to address these and when they have been resolved, we will assess and engage on the way forward”.
Unisa confirmed in a statement to TimesLIVE Premium that it received the correspondence in question from the AG’s office.
“The college of accounting sciences, which is the primary authority on this matter, is processing the contents of the letter and will respond and engage directly with the office of the auditor-general with a view to finding an amicable and common solution to the concerns raised.”
Unisa said it was the university’s standing commitment to ensure that the interests of the students came first.
“Once the engagement processes with the auditor-general are concluded, we will be in a position to share with the media and the public the outcome of these engagements.”
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