How to check a college is accredited

Written by Mohapi · Last updated 15 August 2026 · How these figures are checked

Every January, people arrive at a college with a receipt in their hand and find out the qualification they have been paying for does not exist on any national register. Nobody refunds them. The years are gone.

The four checks below take about twenty minutes and are all free. Do them before you pay a cent, including before you pay a "registration fee to hold your place". A legitimate institution will not mind you checking, and will usually hand you the registration number without being asked.

Why "accredited" is four different things

The single most useful thing to understand is that there is no one stamp called "accredited". Four different bodies each check a different thing, and a college can honestly say it is "registered" while the course you want is not accredited at all. That gap is where most people get caught, and adverts are written to sit inside it.

Check 1: DHET registration

Under the Higher Education Act 101 of 1997, a private institution must be registered with the Department of Higher Education and Training before it may offer higher education programmes or award qualifications in South Africa. Not "should be". Must be.

Ask the college for its registration certificate number. It looks like 2011/HE07/002. Then open the DHET register and find that exact number:

DHET Register of Private Higher Education Institutions (PDF)

Match the number and the institution's name. A number that does not appear, or appears against a different company name, is the end of the conversation.

"Registered" and "provisionally registered" are not the same

The register shows both, and the difference matters to you:

• Registered means the institution has met all the requirements for registration.
• Provisionally registered means it has not met all of them, but the Registrar has reason to believe it will do so within a reasonable period.

Provisional registration is legal and is not automatically a red flag. Plenty of sound new institutions start there. But it does mean the institution is still working towards full compliance, so ask directly what is outstanding and by when, and get the answer in writing. In both cases the Registrar may attach conditions to the registration.

Check 2: CHE accreditation of the programme

This is the check people skip, and it is the one that catches the most cases.

Institutional registration is not programme accreditation. The programmes of a private institution must be accredited by the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC), the accrediting arm of the Council on Higher Education, and registered on the NQF by SAQA. A college can be genuinely registered with DHET and still advertise a course that has never been accredited, or one whose accreditation has lapsed.

So do not ask "are you accredited?", everyone says yes. Ask: "Is this specific qualification, the one I am enrolling for, CHE-accredited, and what is its SAQA ID?" Then check it yourself at che.ac.za.

Check 3: the SAQA NQF register

SAQA maintains the National Qualifications Framework. If a qualification is not registered on the NQF, it is not a recognised South African qualification, whatever the brochure, the certificate design, or the sales consultant says.

Search the qualification by name or SAQA ID here:

SAQA register of qualifications and unit standards

Two things are worth knowing here, because they get confused constantly:

• regqs.saqa.org.za checks whether a qualification exists on the NQF. This is the one you want before enrolling.
• SAQA VeriSearch verifies whether a person actually holds a qualification, against the National Learners' Records Database. That is what employers use later.

While you are there, look at the NQF level, because it tells you plainly what you are buying. A Higher Certificate is level 5, a Diploma level 6, a Bachelor's degree level 7. A "diploma" advertised at level 4 is not a diploma in the sense you are imagining.

Check 4: QCTO, for trades and occupational qualifications

If you are training towards a trade, an artisan qualification or another occupational qualification, the CHE is not the relevant body. The Quality Council for Trades and Occupations handles the design, accreditation, assessment and certification of occupational qualifications, part-qualifications and skills programmes.

What that means practically:

• Skills development providers, public and private, must be QCTO-accredited to offer occupational qualifications.
• Assessment centres and trade test centres must be accredited too. Trade test centre applications go through the National Artisan Moderating Body (NAMB), which makes a recommendation to the QCTO.
• A provider who trains you but cannot get you to an accredited trade test centre has left you with an incomplete pathway.

Check at qcto.org.za, and ask specifically where you will sit your trade test and whether that centre is accredited.

Warning signs

None of these is proof on its own. Two or more together, walk away.

If you have already paid

Do the four checks anyway, today, because the sooner you know the more you can recover.

1. Get everything in writing. Your signed contract, receipts, the advert or brochure, and any WhatsApp messages where claims were made. Screenshot the website before it changes.
2. Put your questions in writing to the college and ask for the registration number and SAQA ID by email. A refusal in writing is useful evidence.
3. Report it to the DHET, which is the body that acts against institutions operating unlawfully. Contact details are at dhet.gov.za.
4. Consider the consumer route. The Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 applies to education services sold to you, and the National Consumer Commission takes complaints about misleading marketing.
5. Do not pay a further cent while it is unresolved, including "exam fees" or "certificate release fees".