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Dental Assistant
OFO Code: 325101
Last checked 7 October 2026
1. Occupation identity
- OFO code
- 325101
- Occupation
- Dental Assistant
- Classification
- OFO 2021
- Major group
- TECHNICIANS AND ASSOCIATE PROFESSIONALS
- Unit group
- 3251 · Dental Assistants and Therapists
Official description
Dental assistants and therapists provide basic dental care services for the prevention and treatment of diseases and disorders of the teeth and mouth, as per care plans and procedures established by a dentist or other oral health professional.
More official OFO detail
Specialisations: Dental Surgery Assistant, Dental Aide, Dental Nurse, Orthodontic Assistant, Dental Chairside Assistant
- Assisting dentists during complex dental procedures
- Providing fluoride treatments, cleaning and removing deposits from teeth, preparing cavities and placing fillings, administering local anaesthesia, and performing other types of basic or routine clinical dental procedures
- Getting patients ready for examination or treatment including explaining procedures and correct positioning
- Conducting visual and physical examinations of patients' mouths, teeth and related structures to assess oral health status
- Taking impressions of the mouth and dental radiographs to support diagnosis and fitting of dental prosthesis
- Advising communities and individuals on dental hygiene, diet and other preventive measures to reduce potential risks to oral health
- Preparing, cleaning and sterilizing dental instruments, equipment and materials used in the examination and treatment of patients
- Identifying cases of patients with poor oral health or oral disease requiring referral to a dentist or other health professional
2. Demand status
Demand evidence unavailable
No approved governed OIHD graph relationship is available on this deployment for this OFO code.
PathLens does not fall back to legacy specimen demand flags when governed evidence is unavailable.
A national demand signal is not a promise of a vacancy in your town.
3. Salary evidence
No approved governed salary observation or sourced snapshot salary record is available for this OFO code yet.
Open remuneration history & calculator →4. Quick EE check
How much might Employment Equity matter in this job context?
Answer three quick questions for a rough read. This is workforce context, not a hiring decision.
Select the employer size and your profile to get a quick read.
5. Qualification
Qualification evidence pending.
Understand NQF levels, institutions & recognition → Build my qualification pathway →6. Study funding
Check all funding options, eligibility & obligations →A funding match will only be shown once a recognised qualification or study route has been identified.
7. Industry, sector and provincial context
National occupation classification. Industry and provincial context are shown only where a separate official source supports the link.
No source-backed modern OFO↔SIC 7 industry link has been ingested for this occupation yet. PathLens does not infer one from the job title.
Browse the official South African industry classification →8. Next steps — official links
9. Decision tools
10. Sources for this page
- DHET Organising Framework for Occupations (OFO 2021) · Ingested · identity spine active
Canonical OFO identity data has been ingested and validated. 1511 occupation records are recorded in the ingest artifact. - DHET Occupations in High Demand · Validated pipeline · graph publication not confirmed
The governed OIHD pipeline is active, but a successful populated graph run is not currently confirmed on this deployment. - Critical Skills List · Monitored · occupation linkage pending
Official migration sources are monitored, but PathLens does not infer visa eligibility or occupation-level eligibility from monitoring alone. - QCTO qualifications and occupational certificates · Candidate staging ready · not published
Qualification staging and human review are implemented; no qualification↔OFO relationship is published without an explicit source identifier or governed human review. - Stats SA Quarterly Labour Force Survey · Acquisition active · no approved evidence on this deployment
Official QLFS artifact discovery is active. Dataset-specific schema, weighting, reliability and review gates remain separate; a discovered artifact or executable estimator does not itself create a public claim. - SETA Sector Skills Plans / hard-to-fill vacancy tables · Partial · explicit source links only
PathLens preserves explicit source-backed SETA/activity links where present and does not infer modern SIC relationships from occupation titles.