A guide to application for exemption certificates

Matriculation Board

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Introduction

The Matriculation Board operates an online application service at which is

particularly helpful for South African schooled school-leavers who have obtained
senior certificates at any one of the nine provincial examining bodies from 1996
until todate as well as with the Independent Examination Board students as from
2002 until todate.

The online application service is also useful for holders of defined foreign school-
leaving and other foreign qualifications that are accepted for admission to
bachelor’s degree studies in South Africa, but the qualifications need to be
verified by the university concerned, a South African foreign mission or a public
notary.

The records of National Senior Certificate (NSC) examination conducted in

November 2008 are also available at the Board but NSC bachelor’s degree
entrants follow a different admission process. The NSC statement of results or
certificate indicates if the candidate qualifies for admission to bachelor’s
degree, diploma or higher certificate, and prospective degree entrants who do
not meet these requirements need to consult the university concerned.

The guide spells out clearly the procedures to be followed by universities when
applying for certificates of exemption in the interest of both the Board and the
students to whom the service is rendered.

Exemption certificates and, where appropriate, their peculiarities are dealt with
according to type; i.e.:

• Mature age and foreign conditional exemption;

• Ordinary or immigrant’s conditional exemption;
• Senate’s discretionary conditional exemption;
• Certificates of complete exemption;
• Condonation of bona fide institutional errors; and
• Other types of complete or conditional exemption.

For detailed information please consult the HESA-enrol website at

http://www.he-enrol.ac.za

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1. MATURE AGE AND FOREIGN CONDITIONAL EXEMPTION

1.1 Students applying directly to the Matriculation Board

In cases of applications for “mature age” and “foreign” conditional exemption

certificates, applicants can either apply via the university concerned or directly
to the Matriculation Board if the application includes letters of registration/
invitation/eligibility for registration from the university/ies concerned. A
certificate can, however, only be issued to one institution at a time.

Most universities apply on behalf to their prospective university students to apply

direct to the Board. The Board’s problem with direct student applications is that
documents (i.e. school certificates/academic transcripts) are often not correctly
certified, and/or not accompanied by letters of registration/invitation/eligibility
for registration from the university concerned and/or when cheques/postal
orders are attached, these are made in favour of the university concerned, or
are dated. In such cases the Board must inform applicants accordingly and
return the invalid cheques/postal orders and application forms with
unacceptable or missing documents, with the request that the applicant
resubmits the correctly certified documents and cheque/postal order for the
amount payable to the Board.

At that stage the application must be filed pending receipt of the outstanding
fees/documents and it stands to reason that this could become a time-
consuming exercise, causing delays at institutions as well as the Board.

The time taken to attend to errors could instead be better used efficiently to
process and issue certificates of exemption. Incomplete and wrong applications
also give rise to an increase in the number of telephone enquiries from both
applicants and universities wanting to ascertain whether applications by
individual students have been received/processed.

1.2 Assistance to students applying directly to the Matriculation Board

Universities that do not apply to the Board on behalf of applicants are asked to
assist prospective students with their applications for foreign and mature age
conditional exemption certificates in applying for certificates of conditional
exemption, i.e. to

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 a. complete the application form that can be downloaded and printed
from and submitted with the application (if not made available to them)
as follows:

• attach an appropriately dated cheque/postal order for the prescribed

fee in favour of the Matriculation Board;

• verify, in the case of foreign students, with their bank or postal

authorities before sending money drafts whether their payments cover
the exemption fee in South African Rand;

• get all educational documents/identity documents /passports /birth

certificates certified by either a South African university, a public
notary in a foreign country, a SA Embassy, Consulate, High Commission
or Trade Mission;

• include the University’s letter of registration/invitation/eligibility for

registration; and

• inform applicants that mature age and foreign conditional exemption

certificates are institution-specific and that transferring from one
institution to another has cost implications for the issue of an amended
certificate of exemption.

1.3 Universities applying for certificates on behalf of students

The most prevalent application procedure has been to submit batches of

applications accompanied by one/more cheque/s and the appropriate
covering lists.

Some institutions have attached the individual payment of each student

together with the applications.

Please note: Some universities do not check whether a cheque/postal order is still valid
by the time of dispatch, or whether it is made out in the name of the
Matriculation Board.

2. APPLICATIONS FOR ORDINARY OR IMMIGRANT’S CONDITIONAL

EXEMPTION

All applicants who are in a position to present statements of symbols indicating

“passed with conditional exemption” could be advised to apply on line or direct
to the Board and submit the statement of symbols accompanied by their

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application form, a certified copy of their identity document/birth
certificate/passport and the appropriate fee if the institution is prepared to
accept applicants on that basis.

If the status of the results is in doubt in any respect, institutions should fax it to the
Board at 086 677 7744/ 012 481 2922 with the request that the Board verifies the
status of the certificate. The information faxed to the Board must clearly indicate
the detail of the applicant, i.e. the full names of the applicant, the examining
body concerned, the year of the examination, the return fax number or address
and, if anything in particular, the query concerned.

3. APPLICATIONS FOR SENATE’S DISCRETIONARY CONDITIONAL

EXEMPTION

Institutions applying for the recording of Senate’s Discretionary (SD) conditional

exemption are required to submit to the Matriculation Board details of new
Senate approved selection programmes, accompanied by a peer assessment
of the programme and an indication of the date of Senate approval.

SD conditional exemption applications should have the following attached:

• the application form appropriately completed by the institution;

• statement by the Registrar that the applicant has shown in some Senate
approved and Matriculation Board recorded selection test/programme that
s/he meets the criteria as determined by the Senate; and

• the appropriate exemption fee for that academic year.

Please note: Institutions often try to apply for SD exemption where errors of admission
have been made, which is not in accordance with the Board’s approved
procedures (see point 5 below for the correct procedures).

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4. CERTIFICATES OF COMPLETE EXEMPTION WHEN OUTSTANDING
EXEMPTION REQUIREMENTS ARE MET

There are three contexts in which a certificate of complete exemption can be

issued:

4.1 Completion of outstanding requirements for ordinary conditional

exemption

Institutions applying for certificates of complete exemption on behalf of students

who have completed the outstanding requirements within the period of validity
of the last conditional exemption certificate issued, are required to submit to the
Board proof of the fact that the requirement has been met, e.g. that the
outstanding HG subject had been passed either as senior certificate subject or
as part of the degree studies in accordance with the requirements of paragraph
41. The same procedure may be followed by the individual student concerned.

4.2 Completion of degree requirements for mature age conditional, foreign

conditional, immigrant’s, and other types of conditional exemption.

Institutions applying on behalf of students who were required to satisfy the

requirements for a degree must submit the students’ academic record indicating
completion of the degree requirements. Students may also apply directly to the
Board provided they are in a position to produce the academic record
indicating the completion of degree requirements.

4.3 Completion of requirements for Senate’s discretionary conditional

exemption.

Institutions applying for the issue of a certificate of complete exemption on

behalf of holders of SD conditional exemption certificates issued in terms of
paragraph 31 who “completed one full credit of instructional offerings” are
required to submit to the Board the names and FTE weights of degree credit
bearing courses passed by the holders. The combined weight of the courses
passed must be equivalent to or more than 1,0 or 120+ NQF Level 5 degree
credits before the conditional certificate of exemption can be converted to a
complete exemption certificate.

Please note: Where a conditional exemption certificate expired before the

requirements have been met, the exemption fee for the period not
covered by the period of validity of the certificate should accompany the
application.

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5. APPLICATIONS FOR CONDONATION OF INSTITUTIONAL ERRORS

Institutions applying for condonation of bona fide institutional errors are required
to submit:

• a copy of a letter from the Registrar of the institution indicating the nature of
the error and an undertaking that remedial measures have been introduced
to avoid a repetition of such error;

• the academic record of the candidate;

• where applicable, the application form for a certificate of exemption

accompanied by the university-certified admission qualifications; and

• the appropriate exemption fee.

6. APPLICATIONS FOR OTHER TYPES OF COMPLETE OR CONDITIONAL

EXEMPTION

Holders of complete exemption and conditional exemption certificates may

apply directly to the Board if they meet the appropriate requirements (see
http://www.he-enrol.ac.za for more details):

6.1 Complete exemption certificates

• by virtue of a combination of N5 subjects and senior certificate languages;

• by virtue of combination of SYSTEM Recovery Programme and senior
certificate subjects;
• by virtue of combination of ASECA and senior certificate subjects;
• in terms of O and A level subjects;
• in terms of IGCSE/GCSE and Advanced Subsidiary (AS) Level subjects;
• by virtue of IGCSE and HIGCSE or NSSC Ordinary and NSSC Higher Level
subjects;
• by virtue of Advanced International Certificate of Education (AICE)
examinations;
• by virtue of academic and professional certificates;
• by virtue of post-school qualifications;
• by virtue of a combination of senior certificate subjects and one language
with First Language HG equivalence;
• by virtue of a combination of senior certificate subjects and extra-curricular
subjects with HG or SG equivalence; and
• by virtue of medical conditions as verified by the examining authority.

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6.2 Conditional exemption certificates

• one outstanding requirement to qualify for a certificate of exemption on a

combination of N5 subjects and senior certificate Higher Grade languages;
• one outstanding requirement to qualify for a certificate of exemption on a
combination of one outstanding requirement for an A and O level subjects;
• one outstanding requirement to qualify for a certificate of exemption on a
combination of one outstanding requirement for an O/GCSE/IGCSE/NSSC
Ordinary and AS or HIGCSE or NSSC Higher level subjects;
• one language requirement for immigrants; and
• by virtue of medical conditions as verified by the examining authority.

Applicants applying for these types of certificates should submit the following to
the Matriculation Board in support of their applications for certificates of
complete or conditional exemption:

• Application form (can be downloaded and printed from the Board’s website:
http://www.he-enrol.ac.za
• educational documents;
• passport/ID document/birth certificate before submitting his/her application
form, documents; and
• exemption fee.

7. METHOD OF PAYMENT

Payments can be made by a cheque in favour of Matriculation Board, or

alternatively electronic payments in the South African currency can be paid as
follows:

Bank: ABSA

Branch: Sunnyside

Branch code: 630345

Account number: 4059036917

NB:

• The name and initials of the exemption certificate applicant must be clearly
indicated on the electronic payment instruction to expedite the linking of the
fee to the applicant.

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• Where payments are made for more than one applicant the payment
instruction accompanied by the list of applicants and a breakdown of the
fees paid on their behalf should be faxed to the Matriculation Board
immediately in order to avoid a misallocation of fees.

8. CONTACT DETAILS

Please note the contact details of the Matriculation Board should further detail
be required:

Postal address: PO Box 3854, PRETORIA 0001, South Africa.

Physical address: Building 3, UNISA Sunnyside North Campus, cor Mears and
Rissik Streets, Sunnyside, Pretoria.
Fax address: +27 (0) 86 677 7744/12 481 2922
Telephone number: +27 (0) 10 591 4401/2
Electronic address: [email protected]
Website www.he-enrol.ac.za