81 NVQ certificate issuing institutions suspended for offering low standard courses

Some 81 institutions offering NVQ certificate courses have been suspended so far due to their low standards, the Sub Committees on Tertiary Education of COPE has revealed.

The Sub Committee recommended formulating a proper mechanism to publish the names of such institutions through newspaper notices and to take legal action to ban them.

The Sub Committees met in Parliament recently chaired by the Chairman of the sub-committee, MP Madhura Withanage and representatives of many institutions such as the Ministry of Education, Tertiary and Vocational Education Commission, National Apprentice and Industrial Training Authority, Vocational Training Authority and the Ceylon German Technical Training Institute attended.

The Committee also stressed the need to identify the fake NVQ certificates and take legal action against the culprits.

The Committee said even though fake certificates could be identified through the QR code of the certificate, there were shortcomings in the Act to take legal action and therefore, gave instructions to amend the relevant Act so as to rectify the shortcomings.(Ajith Siriwardana)