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How to become a Paramedic / Emergency Care Practitioner

Provides advanced pre-hospital emergency care and transports critically ill or injured patients.

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 Paramedic / Emergency Care Practitioner actually do?

More about this career

Responds to medical emergencies in the field - road accidents, cardiac arrests, trauma - stabilising patients and transporting them to the right facility, often working night shifts and irregular hours with private or public emergency medical services, fire departments or the military. Registration with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) is compulsory.

Where this degree can take you

  • Ambulance Operations Manager
  • Fire & Rescue Officer
  • Flight Paramedic
  • Disaster Management Officer

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
  • Physical Sciences
  • 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 1 of 1 degrees
  • Life Sciences – asked for by 1 of 1 degrees
  • Physical Sciences – asked for by 1 of 1 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

1 degree at 1 university. More are added as we verify them.

Durban University of Technology

Partly verified

Bachelor of Health Sciences in Emergency Medical Care

Health Sciences · 4 years

DUT APS 30 points

  • English: level 4 (50% or more)
  • Mathematics: level 4 (50% or more)
  • Life Sciences: level 4 (50% or more) OR Physical Sciences: level 4 (50% or more)
  • Two more subjects – Two further 20-credit subjects (not more than one language).
  • Medical and physical fitness – A medical fitness evaluation and a physical fitness evaluation are both required.

Read directly from DUT’s own career leaflet. The programme does not follow normal semesters - it starts in early January and includes night-shift clinical placements. Applications go through the CAO. Closes 15 June 2026 (earlier than DUT’s standard 30 September date).

Source: View the official page (dut.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?