Mpumalanga students will be expelled from various universities in the Russian Federation if the Mpumalanga Department of Education does not pay tuition fees by Monday 12 December.
The department has failed to renew its contract that expired in March with the agent in charge of placing students studying in 11 institutions in Russia.
The students left South Africa in 2016 to study subjects ranging from medicine to engineering and cyber security.
Out of a total of 221 students, 163 students received letters of expulsion on 5 December as their tuition is still unpaid.
Sandile Gumede, a final year medical student at Saratov State Medical University, told Scrolla.Africa they received the expulsion letters and signed them.
"If tuition fees are not paid by 12 December, we will be expelled. Our academic year is supposed to finish in June 2023. We'll be back home without our degrees," said Gumede.
"My parents don't have money to send me home. Once you're expelled you have to leave the school premises and the hostel and we need to leave the country as we are on student visas. I don't know what I am going to do if I get expelled on Monday."
"The department is claiming they'll accommodate us in South Africa but no school will accredit us with our curriculum. The department has no place for us. They want us to drop seven years of hard work because of an invoice query," he said.
Mpumalanga Department of Education spokesperson Jasper Zwane said the department has paid the stipends, accommodation and visas for students.
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"The tuition can only be paid once the department receives invoices directly from the respective universities," said Zwane.
"The contract of the agent appointed to facilitate the process, however, has since expired and the Auditor General raised issues with that contract."
He said the main concern was that the department may have been overcharged by the agent.
A student from Saratov State Medical University who wished to remain anonymous said: "You don't know the pain of studying in a foreign country for seven years and then you don't graduate. I don't even know how I will get home."
The department did not disclose its plan for the students if they fail to pay their tuition fees.
Dr Sipho Mkhabela, the chief director of the province's education department who was managing the affairs, has been suspended.
The suspension follows a provincial delegation's visit to Russia led by Premier Refilwe Mtsweni-Tsipane.
Pictured above: Mpumalanga medical students before they left the country in 2016.
Image Source: MP provincial government
