By Loushe Jordaan Gilbert
As post-matric students scramble to find study opportunities at different institutions, the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa) cautioned young people to be extra vigilant as bogus nursing colleges pounce at the opportunity to swindle young people out of their money.
Speaking on VOC Breakfast on Tuesday morning, Denosa spokesperson Sibongiseni Delihlazo stressed the importance of registering with an accredited facility to avoid being scammed.
“Many South Africa’s public nursing colleges would have closed applications for the 2024 academic year in 2023 already. Secondly, every institution of higher learning that offers legitimate nursing studies must by law, be registered and accredited by the South African Nursing Council (SANC), which is the country’s regulatory body for nursing,” he said.
“Many of these unregistered institutions know that young people are now frantically looking for a place to study, so they tend to just take the first college that looks interesting and offers some of the courses that they may be interested in. It is very important for young people to do their homework in terms of what to look out for when making big life choices,” stressed Delihlazo.
Delihlazo added that although there is a huge demand for people in the medical field as both doctors and nurses, no person will be employed unless they have the correct papers to prove that they have studied at a legitimate institution.
“The SANC has a list of all accredited public and private nursing schools, colleges, and universities. Those who wish to study nursing, as a first stop, must visit the SANC website (www.sanc.co.za) to check if the institution they wish to study at appears on the SANC website,” he said.
