About us

The Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) oversees the Post-School Education and Training (PSET) sector in South Africa, which includes public and private universities, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and private colleges, Community Education and Training (CET) centres, and Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs), amongst other PSET entities.

The vision of the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) is of a South Africa in which we have a differentiated and fully-inclusive post-school system that allows South Africans to access relevant post-school education and training, in order to fulfill the economic and social goals of participation in an inclusive economy and society.

The Department's mission is to develop capable, well-educated and skilled citizens who are able to compete in a sustainable, diversified and knowledge-intensive international economy, which meets the development goals of the country. The Department will undertake this mission by: reducing skills bottlenecks, especially in priority skills areas; improving participation rates in the system; correcting distributions in the shape, size and distribution of access to post-school education and training; and improving the quality and efficiency in the system, its subsystems and institutions.

As part of providing support to its beneficiaries, the Research Repository has been developed with the purpose of providing stakeholders with access to research on PSET. Research is vital in providing understanding, guidance and evidence to inform decisions and policymaking.

The material on the website comprises of articles, publications, presentations, speeches, working papers, reports, conference proceedings, and research resources and outputs from large-scale research projects, such as research instruments, tools and guides, including surveys, interview guides and data.

The research available on the site would be of benefit to all those in the sector, from researchers in education, students and education entities. The Repository will serve as the primary source of research on PSET, freely available to the public. It will house the following kinds of material:

  • Statistics on PSET, including enrolment and graduate data and trends.
  • Critical skills list which highlight those skills that are in short supply the country.
  • Macro indicator trends which monitors progress in PSET.
  • Labour Market Intelligence which ensures that the PSET system is responsive to the needs of the labour market.
  • Research on TVET which includes research on Accommodation in TVET Colleges, Governance at TVET Colleges, the Satisfaction of Students at TVET Colleges, the Programme Qualifications Mix at TVET Colleges etc, to name a few.
  • Proceedings from PSET research events such as the DHET Research Colloquia, National Skills Authority (NSA) National Skills Conference, and the Human Resource Development Council (HRDC) Summit.
  • The material is used within an Open Access Framework. The authors are personally accountable for the document that they develop and share with the Administrators for dissemination.

The Administrators of the Research Repository makes all reasonable effort to reach agreement on the use of digital texts and images with the holders of the intellectual property rights. In some cases this may not be possible because one or more entitled parties or heirs cannot be found or because the policy of the publisher is unknown to the administrators of the Research Repository. Persons or institutions who desire to exercise potential rights to texts published on the website of Repository should contact the Administrators, specifying the title and the related material. In such cases, the Administrators may have to amend or remove the material.

This site is designed for educational purposes and no payment is made for material submitted for publication and reference on the site. The Administrators of the Repository accepts no responsibility for inappropriate usage of the site, or for rights or claims deriving from the use of the site.