LETTER TO ALL VICE CHANCELLORS SENT IN WEEK ENDING 4 NOV 2005
Dear Dr Woods
STUDENT ENROLMENT PLANNING 2006
You will know that the Minister of Education released a Ministerial Statement on
Student Enrolment Planning in September 2005. In paragraph 5.1 of the Statement,
the Minister said:
“--- during 2006, there will be bilateral discussions between the Ministry of
Education and each university in order to arrive at agreed upon funded head
count and FTE student totals for each university for the period 2007 to 2009,
within the context of system parameters. These discussions follow from earlier
discussions which were held in 2004 with all institutions. These discussions
will be based on an updated analysis of final enrolment and output data for
2004, which will test patterns discussed in the March 2005 report, which used
institutional data for the years 2000 to 2003. Further, these discussions will be
based on the contribution of institutions to national development priorities
within the context of their approved academic and programme profile. Such
discussions will also take into account the concerns raised by the CHE and
HESA, in particular the need to align planning to human resource
development priorities.”
I am writing to advise you of (a) what processes will be employed by the Department
of Education in fulfilling this Ministerial brief, and (b) what preliminary inputs will be
required from institutions.
1
Process to be followed
The process in broad outline will be this:
1.1
Initial phase
An important initial step in the process is to prepare the data analyses and academic
and programme profiles referred to in the Ministerial Statement. The Department has
done the following as part of this phase:
1.2

Data profiles based on their Higher Education Management Information
System (HEMIS) submissions for the academic years 2000 to 2004 have been
sent to institutions for checking and verification. The return date for checked
and corrected profiles has been set as 30 November 2005.

Institutions have been asked to send to the Department a limited number of
tables relating to the space they have available. These tables will be compared
to SAPSE space norms to determine the physical capacity of each institution.
The return date for these space tables was 15 October 2005.

Institutions have also been sent an edited version of their approved programme
and qualification mix (PQM). This document has been with institutions for
some weeks, and the return date for comments was 15 October 2005. The
Department will take account of all comments before final versions of these
PQMs are submitted to the Minister for approval, and are used in enrolment
planning analyses.
Inputs from institutions – Institutional enrolment planning statements
Institutions will be able to send to the Department, before discussions begin, a
statement indicating what contribution they can make to the national development
priorities referred to in the Ministerial Statement. These national development
priorities include areas such as engineering, science, economics, built environment,
construction, health sciences and pre-service teaching. This statement should also
indicate what institutions, in this context of national development priorities, plan or
expect their student inputs and outputs to be during the period 2006 to 2010.
Institutions should identify no more than five national development priority areas for
future development or expansion in their institutional planning statements.
The format of these preliminary institutional planning statements is discussed in
subsection 1.3 , which follows. The closing date for submissions is 31 March 2006.
The Department will analyse these institutional planning statements during April
2006, in preparation for the formal meetings referred to below.
1.3 Format of the Institutional enrolment planning statements
The planning statements referred to above are not expected to be lengthy documents.
As is indicated in the Ministerial Statement, institutions must in their presentations
take account of the preliminary enrolment planning discussions held during 2004, as
well as their PQM profile.
Institutions must include at least the following in these statements:

Contribution to national development needs. A short account must be
offered of what the institution’s contribution has been to national development
needs, and what it believes its future contribution can be.

Data appendix. The tables on the attached excel file (sent separately by email) must be completed as the appendix to the planning statement. These
tables require institutions to provide historical data for 2000-2005, and to set
out planned/expected data for the period 2006-2010. The data for the years
2000-2004 must be consistent with those contained in the profile referred to in
paragraph 1.1 above.

Indicators in data profile. Various of the tables in the institutional profile for
2000-2004 contain data which can be used as indicators of institutional
performance. Institutions must include in their planning statements discussions
and explanations of the following aspects of their data for 2000-2004:

average annual growth rates in total students, contact/distance students,
students by major field of study, students by gender and race group, full-time
equivalent students;
student success rates;
growth in total graduates and graduates by field of study;
ratios between actual and normative student outputs;
average annual growth in staff by employment category, and in FTE
instruction/research staff;
changes in the qualification profile of permanent instruction/research staff;
ratios between actual and normative research outputs.

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Planned/expected enrolments for 2006-2010.
Institutions must offer
explanations of their projected figures, taking particular account of:


1.4
how the changes will enhance the institution’s contribution to national
development needs;
whether the institution’s current staff and physical infrastructure will be able
to handle increases in its student enrolments.
Meetings with institutions
The Department will hold during May and June 2006 meetings with institutions to
deal with the issues raised in paragraph 5.1 of the Ministerial Statement. These
enrolment planning meetings will, as were those of 2004, be held in various regional
centres, as indicated in the box below. Dates and venues for these meetings will be
arranged in early 2006.
Regional centre
Durban
East London
Port Elizabeth
Cape Town
Bloemfontein
Johannesburg
Pretoria
1.5
Institutions involved
DIT, KZN, Mangosuthu, Zululand
Fort Hare, Walter Sisulu
Rhodes, NMMU
CPUT, Stellenbosch, UCT, UWC
Central University, Free State
Johannesburg, Wits, Vaal, North West
Limpopo, Venda, TUT, Unisa, Pretoria
Final phases
At the conclusion of this round of meetings, the Department will draft a set of
enrolment planning parameters for each institution. These drafts will be sent to
institutions for comment, before final decisions on student enrolment planning are
made by the Minister.
I hope that this process will enable the sustainable development of the higher
education sector, and strengthen its contribution to national human resource
development needs.
Yours sincerely
MS N BADSHA
DIRECTOR GENERAL HIGHER EDUCATION
DATE: