Page 52 - CAO 25th Ann Coffee Table Book

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expanded to meet the specific needs of a national system. This would require both additional hardware and software development, much of which was outlined in the discussion above; and
• In the light of the severe difficulties experienced in KwaZulu-Natal during the start-up of the esATI CAO arising from programming problems, adequate time and resources should be made available for the design, piloting, testing and implementation of the information and communications platform of the NHEIAS.
AS EARLY AS JANUARY 2002 THE CAO WAS FACED WITH 2 OPTIONS
Option 2:
Loan repayments of R700 000 per annum to be budgeted for with effect from the 2003 financial year.
Close down the CAO at the end of February 2003, in which case all signatories to the suretyship agreements would be required to pay R500 000, plus a share of any related costs, to the bank and
institutions would be liable to cover severance and liquidation costs, which were likely to be significant.
By the end of 2002, it was reported that the CAO was the only project of its kind in South Africa. Now in its fourth cycle, it had overcome many of its challenges and problems it faced in its first cycle – challenges and problems created by a lack of funding and the need to run the CAO using a bank overdraft. The CAO was now recognised as being highly successful. The fourth cycle had shown a dramatic increase in the number of applicants applying, calculated on a year-on-year basis.
In the esATI board Meeting of 22 November 2002, the chief executive Dr John Butler-Adam, reporting on the NHEIAS, said that the Minister of Education had accepted the recommendations of the NHEIAS Working Group, and would soon be circulating them for comment among the institutions. Comment would close at the end of March 2003, and, all being well, the building blocks would be laid by September 2003 for the fist admission of students in 2005. Dr Butler-Adam said that it seemed reasonably clear that NHEIAS wished to buy out the local CAO, and that esATI needed to get ready to set a price. He reported that he and Dr Ann Knock were of the opinion that the price should not be lower than the outstanding value of the bank overdraft. The on-time application fee for the 2004 entry would be raised to R145 and the late fee to R200. International applicants would pay a R250 on-time and R500 late fee.
The 2002 Handbook had been revamped by remodelling the programme lists and removing multiple entries. The Handbook was posted to school in April, two weeks earlier than in 2000.
Option 1:
Each of the seven signatories to the existing bank suretyship agreements make an interest-free loan of R500 000 to the CAO, which loans are to be used in the first instance to liquidate the CAO’s bank overdraft and that the bank be instructed to cancel the suretyships as a condition of this re-financing arrangement.
The application fees be increased to R180 from March 2003 for entry in 2004 to enable the CAO to present a sustainable operating expenditure budget based on 20 000 applications per annum.
The six members of esATI CAO who have signed suretyship agreements underwriting the FNB loan to the CAO were:
• Durban Institute of Technology (formerly MLST and
TN)
• Mangosuthu Technikon
• Technikon SA
• University of Durban-Westville • University of Natal
• University of Zululand
On 13 May 2002, Vice-Chancellors and Acting Vice- Chancellors met with the NHEIAS Working Group, chaired by Professor Angina Parekh.
The report of the Working Group to the Minister in July included the recommendation that the esATI CAO had been successful and had developed a sound base of expertise, such that it should become the core of the national system.