Chandapiwa Baputaki
18 November 2008
University of Botswana (UB) students are expected to petition the Ministry of Education seeking to pre-empt what appears to be imminent halting of sponsorship for repetition of some subjects after their stipulated time of study.
According to the president of the UB Student Representative Council (SRC), Kagiso Thutwe, they are holding discussions with the ministry over the matter.
"It is not true that we have considered taking the ministry to court. We are still in discussion with the ministry," he said. The cagey SRC president said their board has decided to keep the information under wraps until they petition the ministry.
"We are not going to divulge any reasons why we want to petition the ministry for now," he said.The principal public relations officer for the ministry, Nomsah Zuze, confirmed that the students have indicated that they might petition the ministry. She said the SRC has already requested to be slotted in the minister's diary for a day to deliver their petition. "They were supposed to have come here last week, but the minister was not available so they are waiting for a day that he would be available for them," she said.
She said the ministry has decided to stop sponsoring the students who are retaking modules after failing during their stipulated time of study. "These students attend classes once or twice a week so we treat them like part-timers and we will only sponsor full-time students who attend classes more than twice a week," she said. Zuze further stated that repeating students cost the ministry a lot of money.
Students believe that this would be a breach of their contracts. Students are allowed to complete their courses in the stipulated time period or repeat a module once unless they have valid reasons for why they failed in the first place.
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