Careers › Health

How to become a Oral Hygienist / Oral Health Practitioner

Prevents and treats gum and dental disease alongside dentists.

Apply early

Selection programmes like this often close months before the standard application deadline, and marks alone don’t guarantee a place. See the Dates page for the exact closing dates.

What does a Oral Hygienist / Oral Health Practitioner actually do?

More about this career

Works alongside dentists on preventive dental care – cleaning, fluoride treatments, educating patients – usually in a dental practice or public clinic. It’s a shorter, more accessible route into dentistry-adjacent work than the full dentistry degree.

Where this degree can take you

  • Dental Therapist
  • Dental Practice Manager
  • Community Oral Health Educator

This is our general description of the role and related jobs, not from an official source – it’s here to give you a fuller picture, not as a careers-counselling guarantee.

Not from an official source

Subjects that usually help

  • Mathematics or Mathematical Literacy
  • Life Sciences

This is our general guidance about which school subjects suit this career. It is not an admission requirement and not from an official source – the real requirements are on the degrees below.

Not from an official source

Where to check this yourself

What the degrees we’ve captured actually ask for

  • Mathematics – asked for by 2 of 2 degrees
  • Physical Sciences – asked for by 2 of 2 degrees
  • Mathematical Literacy – asked for by 1 of 2 degrees

Counted from the requirements below (an “or” alternative counts for each subject named). Each degree links to the page it came from.

Degrees that lead here

2 degrees at 2 universities. More are added as we verify them.

University of Pretoria

Selection programme

BOH (Oral Hygiene)

Health Sciences

UP APS 25 points

  • English: level 4 if it is your Home Language, level 4 if it is your First Additional Language
  • Mathematics: level 4 (50% or more)
  • Physical Sciences: level 4 (50% or more)

A selection programme. Most UP closing dates are 30 June; Veterinary Science closes 31 May. Grade 12 applicants apply with their final Grade 11 results.

Source: View the official page (drupalwebprod-files.up.ac.za) (opens the official page) · 2027 intake

University of the Witwatersrand

No cut-off publishedFrom an older document

Bachelor of Oral Health Sciences

Health Sciences · 3 years

No points cut-off published for this one – see the note below.

  • English: level 4 if it is your Home Language, level 4 if it is your First Additional Language
  • Mathematics: level 4 (50% or more) OR Mathematical Literacy: level 7 (80% or more)
  • Physical Sciences: level 4 (50% or more)

Wits Health Sciences uses a Composite Index (75% school average across 5 subjects, 25% NBT), not APS, and does not publish the cut-off scores. This figure comes from the Wits schools-liaison Grade 12 guide, which is headed for 2026 entry. We have not yet found a 2027 course-finder page confirming it, so treat it as the most recent official figure rather than a confirmed 2027 one.

Source: View the official page (wits.ac.za) (opens the official page) · 2027 intake

Are your marks enough?

Put your subjects in once and we’ll check them against every degree above – scored each university’s own way.

What do I qualify for?