The Examination and Graduation Office at the Vaal University of Technology handles graduation ceremonies and the collection of certificates. It is worth saying plainly at the start: the office does not publish a telephone number or a departmental mailbox of its own. It is reached through the university student contact centre, or in person.
Official contact channels
- Student Contact Centre: 0861 861 888, [email protected]
- General enquiries switchboard: 016 950 9000
- Admissions, which is a separate office: 016 950 9276 or 016 950 7671, [email protected]
- In person: the Examination and Graduation Office, Room B110
- University hours: Monday to Friday 07:45 to 16:30, closed weekends
The graduation page does carry email addresses, but they belong to individual staff members rather than to the office. Those addresses stop working when the person moves on, which is why the contact centre is the route given here. If you are told to write to a named person, ask for that in writing from the office itself rather than acting on a number or address found elsewhere.
Services and responsibilities
Certificates are collected on Wednesdays only, between 09:00 and 13:00, at Room B110. That is a four hour window once a week, so plan around it rather than arriving on a Monday and hoping.
Someone else may collect on your behalf, but the requirements are strict and all of them must be met. You email a letter to the office in advance, and the person collecting brings a copy of their own identity document, a copy of yours, the qualification obtained and the year of graduation, and a VUT financial statement showing that you owe the university nothing. A graduate who did not attend the ceremony also pays an absentia fee of R170 before the qualification is released.
For the ceremony itself, report to the table in the foyer of the Great Desmond Tutu Hall one hour before the start to collect your seating card and guest tickets, and collect regalia on campus. Graduates must be seated thirty minutes before the start, and the doors to the main hall close at that point. Latecomers are not admitted. You may bring a maximum of two guests, nobody is admitted without a ticket, and guest seats are not reserved by name.
Office and address information
Room B110 on the Vanderbijlpark campus. Post goes to Private Bag X021, Andries Potgieter Boulevard, Vanderbijlpark 1911. Because the office keeps a narrow collection window rather than ordinary counter hours, confirm before travelling if a public holiday falls on a Wednesday.
Applications and escalation
One thing to be careful about. The absentia fee payment details on the graduation page include a bank account number, and a South African bank account number written in groups of three, three and four looks exactly like a telephone number. Do not dial it, and do not take banking details for a university payment from an email, a WhatsApp message or a social media reply. Read them off the official page each time, because payment redirection fraud aimed at students is common.
The university states that its graduation page carries the official information and that it is not responsible for graduates who act on unofficial details. If a certificate is delayed or withheld, the usual cause is money owed or an outstanding result rather than the office itself, so check your student account first. Employers verifying a qualification do so through the South African Qualifications Authority rather than through the university office.
Sources
- VUT graduations page: vut.ac.za/graduations
- VUT contact page: vut.ac.za/contact-us