Hon Deputy Speaker, we have noted the challenges raised by the committee's oversight report and do take them seriously. We will continue to monitor the progress of the Department of Higher Education and Training in resolving them. We should acknowledge the work that the department is doing towards mitigating some of these challenges, and even the members of the portfolio committee from the opposition know what is being done to mitigate them.
On the issue of the shortage of student accommodation, the department has allocated about R850 million for the 2012-13 financial year for the purposes of refurbishing dilapidated residences and to build new ones, which is a concern of the committee. The department is also engaging with other financial institutions to provide more funding for student accommodation. We hope that institutions will give this matter the urgency it deserves.
Furthermore, the draft policy on professional certificates for FET colleges, which is one of the challenges they are faced with, was published by the Department of Higher Education and Training for public comment. We are hoping that the policy will contribute towards providing FET lecturers with discipline and teaching specialisation. Improving success in the throughput rate is a challenge at the moment.
On the delay in releasing students' certificates, work is under way in the department and Umalusi is to finalise the verification of students' results, and printing and dispatching certificates to the examination centres. The department has committed that this task will be over by 31 October 2012. As a committee, we have committed ourselves that we are going to monitor and see progress in that, but at least for South Africans we are seeing light at the end of the tunnel. Come October 2012, all the students will have received their certificates.
On the issue of the administrators, which hon Bhanga has talked about, again, I think, the Minister has taken a very good stance by saying each and every college must have a qualified chief financial officer, CFO. Where a chartered accountant might be retired or whatsoever, the CFO must make sure that he/she takes over the issues of finances in that college so as to make sure that in future we don't see much of the administrators, because most of the time it is because of financial mismanagement and the like. We really applaud those good steps that the Minister and the department have taken. Hopefully, we are going to see some changes in those FET colleges, and thus avoid having more of them under administration. Members of the portfolio committee have already discussed these things and we all applauded them. It is only political posturing when we see parties coming here just to shout about these things, when these are things that we discussed and agreed upon in the committee. Thank you. [Applause.]
Declarations of vote made on behalf of the Democratic Alliance, Congress of the People, Inkatha Freedom Party and African National Congress.
Motion agreed to.
Report accordingly adopted.