NORTEC certificate complaints resolved

Copperbelt Minister Mwenya Musenge and Technical Education, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training Authority (TEVETA) officials have addressed complaints over security features for the certificates issued by the northern technical college (NORTEC) in Ndola.

The students staged a peaceful demonstration this week over the reduced features on the certificates saying the documents could easily be forged.

This came to light when Mr Musenge and TEVATA Director General David Chankonta held a meeting with representatives of the at his office in Ndola today.

Mr Musenge said features like the name of the institution, center number, registration number and the duration of the course which was not appearing on the certificates will now be embedded on the documents starting 2013.

Mr MUSENGE said embedding the name of the institution is necessary because it gives a brief back ground of where the document was obtained unlike where no name of the institution appeared.

He however said embedding NRC numbers on certificates which was one of the students’ complaints is a risk and not necessary as the documents can also be used internationally where NRC numbers cannot be of use.

Mr Musenge said government will ensure that students get rewarded with a document they are happy.

He said government will ensure that each document given is not only recognised locally but in the SADC region as well.

He further appealed to students from various institutions country wide to bring out genuine issues in their protests and not allow political parties to use them for their personal interests.

And Mr Chankonta said TAVETA will ensure that the next certificates issued will have the security features suggested by the students..

Mr CHANKONTA said TAVETA will also find a way to look into the matter of those who did not manage to register for their exams in April 2013 to see on how they will sit for exams this April and not next year.

He added that it is impossible for TAVETA to stop running the exams at NORTEC as desired by the students because the law mandates it to do so.

Nortec students today once again took to the streets to air their grievances after having a peaceful demonstration last tuesday concerning security features on their certificates issued by TEVETA.