Tertiary institutions operating outside the country’s education standards could face closure as a proposed law will introduce a two-year compliance waiting period.
The ministry of education and training, warned that unaccredited colleges were putting the futures of unsuspecting students at risk.
Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry Nanikie Mnisi said institutions would be expected to comply fully with the proposed Eswatini Qualifications Framework Act of 2026 within two years of its implementation.
She was speaking during a workshop for the Ministry of Education and Training Portfolio Committee at Sunset Valley Lodge in Manzini.
Mnisi said the grace period would give institutions time to correct deficiencies and align their qualifications with the requirements of the proposed legislation. She warned that institutions that continued operating outside the law after the two-year period could be shut down.
She said the ministry had observed the proliferation of what she described as briefcase colleges, some operating from unsuitable premises that fell below the country’s education standards.
She raised concern that some of these institutions were awarding qualifications that had not been approved by the Eswatini Higher Education Council (ESHEC) and were not aligned with the proposed qualifications framework.
According to Mnisi, the consequences extended beyond the institutions themselves, as students could spend substantial amounts of money pursuing qualifications that failed to meet the standards required by employers and institutions locally and abroad.
The principal secretary added that the qualifications obtained from such institutions could leave graduates struggling to secure employment, particularly in countries whose education systems were used as benchmarks by the country.
She warned that some graduates could discover too late that their certificates did not carry the recognition they had expected, despite having invested time and money in their studies.
“As Emaswati, we are saying we are tired of people taking advantage of us,” Mnisi said, arguing that the proposed law would help ensure that institutions operated within an enforceable regulatory framework.
She said the intention was to protect citizens from being defrauded by institutions that operated without appropriate recognition and subsequently left their graduates with qualifications that did not improve their employment prospects.
Mnisi added that the framework would strengthen the country’s ability to deal with institutions that issued qualifications without meeting recognised requirements.
The proposed legislation is intended to establish a formal system for registering and recognising qualifications in the kingdom, addressing what Mnisi described as a gap in the current legal framework.
She explained that qualifications were already being registered through the relevant qualifications department, including those associated with technical and vocational education and training (TVET), but there was no existing law clearly prescribing how the registration process should be conducted nationally.
The absence of such legislation, she said, made it necessary for the country to establish clear rules governing qualifications and the institutions that awarded them.
Mnisi stressed that the framework would not operate in isolation, but would have to be aligned with existing and future legislation governing different professional and educational sectors.
She cited the Council of Educators Act of 2023 as an example of legislation that already provides for the regulation of teachers, including requirements relating to the legitimacy and recognition of their qualifications.
Using the teaching profession to illustrate the consequences of obtaining an unrecognised qualification, Mnisi said the Council of Educators would not issue a practising licence to someone whose qualification do not meet the required standards.
She explained that teachers would be required to obtain licences or permits to teach, with the permits reviewed every three years.
She also urged teachers to register with the council once the necessary government funding was released and the council became operational. Mnisi said teachers would not be employed by the Teaching Service Commission without the required licence or permit.
She argued that the same principle of professional accountability should underpin the broader regulation of qualifications, ensuring that certificates presented as proof of academic or professional competence were legitimate and recognised.
The proposed framework is expected to cover both academic qualifications and vocational training. Mnisi explained that academia included professionals such as journalists, social scientists, doctors and lecturers, while TVET covered practical and technical skills.
She said the country needed a clear system for categorising qualifications according to their respective levels, allowing institutions, employers and other countries to establish what a particular qualification represented.
Mnisi further warned that the proposed legislation should be carefully drafted to avoid conflicts with other laws, including the Council of Educators Act and the anticipated Council of TVET Act. She said the ministry wanted to avoid a situation in which conflicting legislation created uncertainty, forced repeated amendments and placed unnecessary demands on government resources and Parliament.
The portfolio committee workshop forms part of the legislative scrutiny process, during which parliamentarians examine the Bill clause by clause before further consultations with stakeholders.
Mnisi said the process was intended to identify gaps, inconsistencies and possible conflicts with international standards before the legislation advanced through the remaining parliamentary stages.
She urged stakeholders to familiarise themselves with the full contents of the Bill so that concerns could be identified and addressed before its finalisation.
The proposed law, if passed and implemented as envisaged, would introduce a more formal basis for regulating qualifications and holding institutions accountable for the standards of education they provide.
For prospective students, the ministry’s warning is that the name of an institution or the promise of a prestigious certificate should not be mistaken for proof that a qualification is recognised. For institutions, the message is that the proposed framework would require them to meet the applicable standards or risk losing the right to operate.
Eswatini risks graduates being rejected abroad
The country risks leaving its graduates at a disadvantage in the regional and international job market unless it establishes a legally binding system for recognising and categorising academic and vocational qualifications, Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Training Nanikie Mnisi has warned.
Mnisi said the proposed Eswatini Qualifications Framework Act of 2026 was critical to ensuring that qualifications obtained in the country could be properly assessed against standards applied elsewhere, while also providing a mechanism to verify the legitimacy of qualifications held by foreign professionals seeking to work in the kingdom.
She made the submissions during a workshop for the Ministry of Education and Training Portfolio Committee at Sunset Valley Lodge in Manzini, where legislators were examining the proposed Bill clause by clause.
Mnisi said the absence of a dedicated law governing the registration of qualifications left a significant gap in the country’s education regulatory system, despite qualifications already being registered through the relevant department.
She explained that technical and vocational education and training (TVET) graduates were among those whose qualifications required a clear, legally established registration and classification process.
Without a comprehensive framework, she warned, Eswatini could struggle to demonstrate how its qualifications compare with those of other countries, potentially undermining graduates’ ability to pursue further studies or secure employment beyond its borders.
The principal secretary said Eswatini was part of regional and continental efforts to facilitate the movement of academic and professional talent, making alignment with relevant standards essential.
She explained that the country needed a system that would allow local citizens to present their qualifications confidently when seeking opportunities in neighbouring countries and further abroad, without being disadvantaged by uncertainty over the status or level of their studies.
Mnisi said the proposed law would also assist local authorities in assessing qualifications held by foreign professionals, including doctors, lecturers and engineers, in collaboration with counterparts in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region and across Africa.
This would help establish whether such qualifications were genuine and met the applicable requirements before their holders were admitted to relevant professional or academic roles.
The proposed framework would, therefore, serve a dual purpose: improving the portability and recognition of Eswatini qualifications while strengthening safeguards against the acceptance of unrecognised or fraudulent credentials.
Mnisi said the legislation was particularly important because the country’s education system included both academic programmes and vocational training, which needed to be categorised within a coherent national structure. She cited the differing levels associated with the Eswatini General Certificate of Secondary Education (EGCSE) and South Africa’s matric qualification as an example of the issues requiring attention.
Mnisi said the kingdom was working towards aligning the classification of its school qualifications with relevant regional benchmarks. She also referred to the proposed curriculum-based education pathway and its four-year programme, explaining that progression through the new structure would have implications for the levels assigned to qualifications.
She said a clearly defined framework would help institutions and employers establish the level of learning a qualification represented, reducing uncertainty when comparing credentials from different education systems.
The proposed law would also have to be carefully coordinated with existing legislation to prevent contradictions that could weaken the country’s regulatory framework.
Mnisi said the ministry was particularly cautious about ensuring that the Bill did not conflict with the Constitution or other laws already in force, as well as legislation that might be introduced in future.
She cited the Council of Educators Act of 2023 and the anticipated Council of TVET Act as examples of laws that would have to operate alongside the qualifications framework.
The proposed Council of TVET, she explained, would oversee compliance across the vocational training sector rather than operate as an institution competing with other players.
Its role would be to help ensure that institutions operated fairly and met the standards required of them, without giving one provider an unfair advantage over another.
Mnisi cautioned that poorly coordinated legislation could create unnecessary administrative and financial costs for government, particularly if laws repeatedly required amendment to resolve inconsistencies.
She stressed that the Constitution remained the supreme law of the country and that the wording of the proposed framework had to reflect that position while allowing it to work effectively alongside other legislation.
The principal secretary said the parliamentary scrutiny process was, therefore, crucial to ensuring that the Bill was consistent with national laws and relevant international standards before it progressed
| Proposal | As described by the principal secretary | Current status |
|---|---|---|
| Compliance period | Institutions would have two years from implementation to correct deficiencies and align qualifications. | Proposed. The Bill is still before the portfolio committee. |
| Shutdown warning | Institutions still operating outside the law after that period could be shut down. | Conditional on passage, implementation and continued non-compliance. No closure order is reported. |
| Registration gap | Qualifications, including TVET qualifications, are already registered, but no dedicated law prescribes the national process. | The proposed framework would create that legal basis. ESHEC’s existing higher-education mandate is separate. |
| Coverage | Academic and vocational qualifications, classified by level. | Proposed. No qualification levels are set out in the copy. |
| Cross-border role | Compare Eswatini qualifications with foreign standards and assess credentials held by foreign professionals, including through SADC and wider African cooperation. | Described as an intended function, not an operating system. |
Source: Portfolio-committee workshop remarks reported by Phiwase Phungwayo. No institutions are named and no workshop date is supplied.
