More than 500 unemployed black gradua-tes of the Tshwane, Durban and Cape Peninsula universities of technology have complained that unfair discrimination by the South African Dental Technicians Council (SADTC) has all but put paid to their career dreams.
The students, some of whom qualified a dozen years ago and remain unemployed, poured out their hearts in letters to the Presidency and the parliamentary portfolio committee on higher education in April 2022 about being frustrated in the job market.
“Since 2010, the SADTC has not registered black dental technicians from these universities even though they passed. We have even gone as far as approaching the South African Qualifications Authority and Council on Higher Education for help to no avail,” reads the letter in part.
People in the dental profession must be registered by the council before they can be employed in the field for which they have been trained and are qualified.
The students blamed council president and head of the department of prosthodontics (dentistry) at Wits University, Peter Owen for their woes.
“It is painful to have a qualification and have someone render it useless, and more heartbreaking for their parents is that their children have spent 1 095 days in limbo.”
They claim that the profession remains largely skewed in favour of whites, sta-ting that former SADTC president, Mokgatle Makwakwa, tried to register more blacks during her tenure, which ended in 2019, but met resistance from white lab owners.
They stated that dental labs are unable to employ them for fear that Owen would revoke their accreditation for hiring graduates not yet registered with the council.
“The admission to the programme was transformed to cater to most black students from rural areas and margina-lised low-income households but the council decided to gatekeep,” said the students.
Aggrieved graduates’ representative and Free Education activist Kevin Phehla, who was instrumental in writing the letters, asked parliament to intervene and investigate “the sabotage of the dreams of black dental graduates”.
Owen, on Friday, said that the issue has been ongoing for six years, and stated that the Department of Health and minister Aaron Motsoaledi had asked the council to come up with solutions.
“We found solutions which are being put into place… and you should note that as this is a council matter and as we report to the national Department of Health, it is important to communicate with the ministry. Universities did not do things right from the beginning, and based on these solutions, correct measures should be implemented for students to be registered,” said Owen.
