Unisa graduates urged to collect outstanding certificates

Unisa urged graduates to collect their certificates as it wants to speed up the delivery of certificates both locally and internationally for all students who have completed their studies.

This came after Unisa vice-chancellor and principal professor Puleng LenkaBula said the issuing of outstanding certificates was a priority for the university.

The university said in a statement that its graduations division would embark on a final round of visits to the Unisa regional offices till November 6, 2021.

“We urge all students to collect their certificates from their respective regional offices once they have received an SMS from the university indicating the specific date and place of collection.

“Students are also advised to wait for the SMS message before visiting their designated regional office to collect their certificates.”

It said collections of certificates would take place at the Unisa Muckleneuck Campus in Pretoria, which was open for collection on weekdays from 09:00 to 15:00.

“Certificates can be collected from the OR Tambo Building on the campus.

“Students who did not receive such an SMS must contact the university to find out whether their contact details are captured correctly on the system and to make the necessary arrangements to collect their certificates.”

Certificates for the 2021 Spring graduation period would be ready for collection later in the year.

This comes as Covid-19 had interrupted certificates being handed out at graduation ceremonies.

Since the pandemic, the university arranged courier services locally and internationally to deliver certificates to students.

The courier service operation has required the university to deliver about 60 000 certificates.

“Challenges” had however arisen, Unisa said.

“To mitigate these risks, the university has changed its model and arranged for the collection of certificates at Unisa regional centres across the provinces.

“Over 60 000 certificates were due for delivery to students. These entailed uncollected certificates from 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.

“A total of 46 071 certificates were due for collection for 2021. To date, 31 000 of the 46 000 certificates have been issued.”