or months, Unisa students have complained that the University has not issued their certificates, resulting in their plans for employment being put on hold. Unisa said they had already started issuing the certificates at regional centres but suspended the action due to the challenges brought by the Covid-19 Pandemic.
The University of South Africa (Unisa) has once again released a statement through its website noting the difficulty that some students have faced students due to delayed certificates.
The university states that graduate certificates are ceremonially handed to students during their graduation event.
This has always given assurance that the certificate is given to the right hands, the statement says.
Unisa said the university has always committed to delivering certificates to students locally and internationally during the Covid-19 pandemic when students couldn’t collect them.
Read: UNISA calling on all students To Collect Their Certificates
Unisa claims that over 60 000 certificates await to be delivered to students and their efforts were interrupted by the pandemic.
This has led to the change of the delivery model, as the students now are sent SMSes to collect their certificates at Unisa regional offices and centres.
The backlog of uncollected certificates dates back from 2017 to 2020, where over 46 000 certificates were due for collection in 2021.
Unisa said 31 000 certificates of the 60 000 have been issued to students and assured that the 2021 certificates will be issued later in their year.
The newly appointed Vice-Chancellor Professor Lenka Bula says it was through her appointment that the distribution of certificates was accelerated.
The University’s reputation has been on the line due to the delayed services and students resorting to media for help.
Since President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement of alert level 1, the country has started to open up and Unisa might also take the opportunity to fix its challenges.