Institutions affiliated with Educor, one of the biggest and oldest private education brands in the country, are racing against time to clean their image following the lifeline they received from the Department of Higher Education.
“The cancellation of Lyceum College on March 26, 2024, was a significant challenge for our institution. However, it also served as a catalyst for transformative change.
“In response, the Lyceum shareholders have been deeply committed to addressing the concerns that led to this decision,” said Lyceum in a statement on Thursday.
Lyceum is one of the four institutions that make up the Educor Group, along with City Varsity College, Damelin, and Icesa, whose programmes the department deregistered.
Failure to submit financial statements
Dr Blade Nzimande, in his capacity as the minister of higher education, cited failure by the institutions to submit proof of financial viability as the main reason for the drastic measure.
This included failure to submit their annual financial statements and tax clearance certificates for the 2021 and 2022 years as proof of their financial viability.
“The complaints include poor quality of teaching and learning, lack of proper administrative support, poorly qualified staff, corruption and bribery,” said Nzimande at the time.
Other allegations levelled against Educor included underpayment of staff salaries.
But the institution explained it has learnt its lesson.
“The development marks a new chapter for Lyceum College, reaffirming its commitment to providing quality higher education through distance learning in South Africa,” it said.
It further stated that, as part of rigorous corrective measures, an independent oversight committee has been established “to drive substantial improvements across all areas of our operations”, according to the college.
“This committee’s primary focus is to ensure that Lyceum not only meets but exceeds the regulatory standards required by the Department of Higher Education and Training,” the institution said.
Compliance with accreditation standards
The new Minister of Higher Education, Dr Nobuhle Nkabane, provisionally reinstated the registration of educators.
This means dozens of desperate students who were left on a lurch and unable to finish their courses have been thrown a lifeline.
But Nkabane issued a stern warning to Educor, saying it must fully comply with the Council on Higher Education (CHE) before the commencement of teaching and learning activities.
“Compliance with these accreditation standards is imperative to ensure the quality and integrity of their educational programmes,” she said.
In addition, the educator is required to submit comprehensive monthly reports to the department, such as financial statements, student enrolment statistics, and progress updates on CHE accreditation standards.
Educor is a pathetic company. They are refusing to pay refunds to students that have deregistered with their institution since March 2024, due to their financial problems. They are basically stealing from parents that work very hard to pay for their children’s education. This is a problem I’m currently dealing with Damelin Overport
I worked for Educor head office. The company has no structure for proper staff promotions and staff is seriously underpaid. Collections Delartment staff are paid R5000 and sales department staff paid R4500. All management positions are given to people of the same race. There is no black manager in any department. They’re owing municipalities in the cities where they have colleges. The environment is very abusive to employees.
Its unfortunate that the minsiter has given Educor a lease of life without having addressed the issue of hundreds of students who are owed by Damelini, the hundteds of ex and current staff being 9wed unpaid salaries, and severance pay…the issue of UNQUALIFIED individuals holding senior positions.
I don’t think the Minister must allow these institutions to continue operating, they are still going to cause serious damages to communities. They have wrongfully dismissed a lot of lecturers, and this was an instruction from higher management (usually Indians) so that they can be able to take more profit. In conclusion, about 95% of students who graduated from Damelin, ICESA, Lycium, Central Technical College, Intec, Damelin Correspondence are not working in their respective fields, most of them are working in call centers and restaurants earning less than R5000 a months meaning there is no need to give these institutions another chance, they have already caused enough damages. They are currently owing rates and taxes from the Municipality in most of their buildings across all provinces where they operate, in addition they are still owing students who have deregistered a lot of money, they must first fix all this nonsense before they are allowed to operate. They must also restore the dignity of all lecturers who have been wrongfully dismissed.
Please interview students and find out our experiences, how educor closed campuses and we left unable to complete our studies
Educor shouldn’t be given back their registration, they have let us down, parents and students crying. They treat the staff so poorly, they haven’t learnt any lesson, students still don’t have classes due to non payment of salaries, we pay for face to face classes and get online classes with no support, we hardly have online classes, the lecturers complain saying they don’t have places to live and in debt, we all want our money back and want to study elsewhere, this college is a scam
The media needs to assist students in getting the ministers attention. Damelin is stealing our money, they don’t pay municipality bills our campus has no lights for most of the year. All they know we must pay pay but we don’t get any service, staff don’t get paid and can’t assist us in any way, staff don’t get communication either do we as students.
Educor must also completely get rid of that woman Delene Naicker, she is a racist, she was always wrong fully dismissing Lecturers, and I also heard that she was practicing nepotism, she was giving all part time classes to her friends and relatives without following proper recruitment processes. She is very greedy, she is an Academic Manager, but she also had a parttime class lecturing part time students while there were underpaid lectures who could lecture that subject. I heard that She also allowed Engineering students who failed Test 2 to rewrite that Test 2 using the same question papers meaning those marks for last year first and second semester should be investigated. In that part time class, one of the students said Delene Naicker made all students pay R500 each so that they can pass the subject, and it was about 10 students meaning she received R5000 which was paid by hand from all students she was teaching.
The media needs to assist students in getting the ministers attention. Damelin is stealing our money, they don’t pay municipality bills our campus has no lights for most of the year. All they know we must pay pay but we don’t get any service, staff don’t get paid and can’t assist us in any way, staff don’t get communication either do we as students. As we speak we don’t have campus they closed it down without notice or care for student and workers. We’re expected to write exams at Durban while we’re in Pmb and some of us can’t afford to do that but we can’t do anything because they ignore our emails when we ask them to assist us somehow because at the end of the day we’re paying thousands in this institution but it’s feels like we’re just wasting money and being scammed they don’t communicate with us at all