FIX ALL, NOT ONE

WE want quality education and will not settle for anything less. If this is what Education Minister Dr Phineas Magagula wants to give us now following the suspension of Swaziland Christian University (SCU), then a major shut down of the education sector is upon us.

That is wishful thinking of course, because the latest stunt smacks of vindictiveness towards an institution he personally helped establish only to dump it along the way when personal shareholder differences emerged. Promises of part funding by government were broken for reasons not explained to us. Inevitably, the shortage of equipment has given reason to shut the institution down.

How else does he explain licensing and providing scholarships for students enrolled at an institution that is not accredited? 
We have not forgotten that the birth of SCU was a joint venture with government to provide the much needed medical school the country desperately needs given the high cost to train doctors outside the country. The ministry encouraged parents to enrol their children there and they did. Now the parents have also been dumped.

The ministry pulled a similar stunt on foreign guests all the way from Korea when it promised to have SCU officially opened by the King resulting in hundreds of thousands being spent on preparations and flying the dignitaries and funders over here, only to cancel the event at the last hour.  If this is not a systematic destruction of the SCU then I don’t know what is.

Not surprising though as such actions are synonymous with the ministry’s modus operandi. It was convenient to be seen delivering on the mandate to create more universities for a country that only had one, by turning a blind eye to the basic requirements.

We are told that the Swaziland Higher Education Council, which serves as a regulator, has suddenly found a lack of accreditation to the University of Pretoria, poor physical infrastructure in the laboratories and a lack of prescribed books in the library, among other concerns. This of course, is worrying and we are encouraged by SCU’s reaction that it will comply with the recommendations as soon as possible so that the future of hundreds of pupils, some sponsored by government, would not be jeopardised.
It is a well-known fact that SCU is not the only institution with the challenges cited by the minister. SHEC says it is conducting a national audit of all higher learning institutions and will be delivering reports soon. Why is it taking the whole year to probe these institutions by the way? These audits started last year. No institution can be allowed to short-change parents or the future of our students by providing sub-standard qualifications if we are serious about developing with a highly qualified citizenry that can elevate this country to compete successfully on the global stage.
Now that the ministry has a body regulating the quality of education in our tertiary institutions, which we applaud, we expect equal standards applied on the quality of education in our primary and high schools.
The poor implementation of the free primary education programme and failing to provide enough tertiary institutions, yet happy to punish those doing equally poor is hypocrisy at its best!

The minister ought to remember that there are only eight institutions of higher learning absorbing less than 3 000 students per intake while over 250 high schools produce thousands of school leavers. Dozens of people have jumped at the opportunity to cash in on the stranded pupils by doing what government is failing to do by setting up private colleges.

Is SCU one of them? Well it initially satisfied government requirements for its students to qualify for government scholarships. If the vetting process was flawed, then government ought to take full responsibility for what has befallen the institution. It should also revert to and honour its obligations to the SCU, the students and the parents. 

Many parents will be devastated by the SCU suspension even though deep down they would want their children to be properly qualified. The country is littered with certificate carrying youth roaming the streets in search of jobs that are hard to come by while some are simply rejected for the inadequacy of their qualifications. Parents need to be protected from spending hard earned money on ‘fake’ institutions. It would appear though, that parents also need to be protected from the ministry that deliberately creates some of them.
 

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