ABSTRACT
This chapter describers the educational provision and accreditation arrangements in South Africa's universities, technikons, colleges of education, private colleges, colleges of agriculture, colleges of nursing and Industry Training Boards. South Africa has eighteen universities. South Africa includes the Republic of South Africa, and the self-governing territories of Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei. Accreditation and external quality assurance by peer-group evaluation are phenomena in some certain sectors and non-existent in others. The Association of Accredited Education Centers of South Africa was established by private sector training institutions and colleges in 1989. Higher education in South Africa needs to include all sectors, with optimal consolidation and rationalization. South Africa has a shortage of trained personnel, with only one high-level trained person for every eighty-five of the economically active population, compared to one in thirteen in the United State of America. South African universities are self-accrediting, but for vocational higher education a number of external accreditation mechanisms and accreditation bodies, do exist.
