Good afternoon.I am a South African with...

Asked by Coenie on 09-04-2023 13:44:31
Question posted in the General Law category relating to Eastern Cape

Good afternoon.

I am a South-African with an LLB graduate from London University, UK. I believe it is equivalent to a ZA LLB. I am the founder of the (private) paralegal training school www.lawschool.co.za, ao believe this MIGHT help in counting towards practical training.  But  I also need to do a LEAD PVT School for practical training to become an advocate. So I need SAQA to confirm that my LLB is equivalent to a ZA LLB. There lies the problem>>

My problem is with SAQA.They told me "SAQA is unable to obtain a response from University of London due to a verification payment that needs to be made through Higher Education Degree Datacheck. To take the matter forward, kindly make the required payment as per the information below, and have the institution send the verification results directly to us. SAQA will correspond with the institution should any further information be required. To pay the verification fee, kindly register as a client and complete the verification process through the following webpage:https:// hedd .ac.uk/enquirer-registration?execution=e1s1 "

I then made payment to the UK and wrote an email to SAQA as follows " As per your requirements, I have submitted a Transcripts (external) request to my university, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON, to verify my LLB (Hons.) degree, with your office.Verification fee was made to University of London, with Order Number UOL179925.

"SAQA replied with an autoresponder: "As verification payment to the institution was not made, SAQA has now closed the file for qualification LLB (Hons.)."

My reply to SAQA on 15 Feb 2023: "PLEASE NOTE THAT YOUR FACTS ARE INCORRECT. I MADE PAYMENT ON 1 FEB 2023, AND I SENT YOU PROOF OF PAYMENT ON THIS DATE. Please see my email sent to you hereunder, together with PoP."I had no answer from SAQA.

So they closed my file, after I paid as requested!I CANNOT PROCEED with my career goal, ie to eventually get admitted as advocate, without SAQA's proof. It seems to be a catch 22 situation?

WHAT ARE MY LEGAL OPTIONS?

Thank you!

Further information relating to Question:

I must add that SAQA takes ages to respond. It is very difficult to communicate with them, they also do not answer their phones.

Message from the Lawyer

Posted by Att. Patrick on 09-04-2023 23:49:25

Hi there and thank you for your question,

I am a practicing attorney based in South Africa and I will assist you with your question. Please feel free to ask as many follow up questions in order to clarify your question. If you have a new question, you must please open a new thread.

Please keep in mind that our discussions is for general information purposes only. Our engagement on this website does not create an attorney-client relationship. 

I'm not 100% sure that at present you have a legal dispute which you need a lawyer for. 

It sounds (from reading your copy/paste messages) like SAQA understood your email to mean that you paid the Verification fee to the University of London, because that's what you wrote, and they then closed your file because you hadn't made payment to hedd. It sounds like they didn't enquire further from you, or attempt to obtain clarity from you. 

I think that what you should be doing (besides calling the support agent at SAQA an idiot) is to re-submit your verification application to SAQA, and then going down the same road, and when they say "please make the payment to hedd", immediately respond to say "I've made the payment, here is the POP".

Given that your file has been closed, I think that if you can't get hold of them telephonically to get them to re-open your file, then you should simply make the application again.

What about telephoning their CEO or CFO, or sending them an email. There are also loads of numbers for the various qualifications managers etc on their website - https://www.saqa.org.za/important-contact-information/

Message from the client

Thank you for the advice, I will try that.

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