Page 7 - CAO Annual Report 2024/2025

The TVET Colleges (Technical and Vocational Education and Training) on the other hand do provide the opportunity for a larger intake of students’ post schooling.
During the year the CAO has continued to improve in a number of areas which included focusing on being a financially sustainable organization. To this end the creation of the Marketing Department will begin to focus greater attention on ensuring that previously neglected segments are revisited and that new strategies are pursued that will be able to assist in contributing to an improvement in the number of applications with accompanying fee payment. The continuous improvement of the systems and processes within the organization, ensuring that our IT system is improved and is kept up to date in respect of meeting current day processing and digital requirements and enhancing the skill requirement and needs of the organization remains a priority. The current system for processing applications at CAO is nearing its end of life cycle. In this regard plans have been developed during the course of the year under review for a new system to be developed in order to replace the current one. This will be a major capital deployment by the organisation. Equally the CAO has been responding favorably to the Department of Education and Training in respect of the signed collaborative agreement between two parties towards assisting in the establishment of a National Applications Service. To this end the CAO has been involved in the pilot testing phase for the Department of Higher Education and Training.
An important consideration for the CAO’s success is to be a financially sustainable organization. To this end careful management of the finances has been a strong factor in the management of the overall organization. This has allowed the organization to remain a viable organization, being able to continuously spend money on technological advancements as well as employing skilled technical staff as and when necessary. The CAO, given the nature of its business is limited to raising its administrative application fees annually. Hence only through effective and efficient management of its finances can the CAO continue to improve its services in areas such as career education information.
A noteworthy feat has been to ensure that students from the length and breadth of the Province of KwaZulu-Natal have access to career information as well as on application processes for the respective academic programmes at the Universities and Colleges in KwaZulu- Natal.
The CAO’s success is grounded in following good business principles and practices. The importance of ensuring that it attracts and retains high quality staff cannot be underscored given that the organisation has to embody agility and leanness. To this end the organization continues to have competent staff, many of whom are long serving. The organization continues to ensure that it promotes diversity in its workforce. Equally the organization ensures that it is community responsive to its clients, making bursaries and other opportunities available through its enterprise development spend.
The CAO remains a vital organization in ensuring that it runs a seamless professional and simple application process for the students who wish to apply and be considered for a place at one of the Universities or colleges in the Province of KwaZulu-Natal. Over and above this key goal, the organisation has continued to contribute and collaborate with the Department of Higher Education and Training in respect of supporting the development of the Central Application Service (CAS). The collaborative work for the Department of Higher Education and Training includes the CAS and CACH projects. During the period under review, significant effort has being put in by the CAO team in respect of the pilot test phase of CAS.
Any organisation is only as good as the people who guide it, lead it and deliver successful results. My thanks go to Mr George van der Ross the CEO for his excellent stewardship and dedication, the Staff for their loyalty and good work and Board of Directors for continuously focusing on good governance and acting in the best interests of the organisation and ensuring for another year of stability, achievements, and successes at the CAO.
Dr Gops Chetty
Chairperson - Board of Directors CAO
ANNUAL REPORT 2024/2025 | 5
CENTRAL APPLICATIONS OFFICE