Scholarship crisis and the future of a Swazi child

Sir,

The society that we advocate for is one that should give equal opportunities to people regardless of their background, social and/or financial standing. Human rights basically are for the advancement of human dignity.

You may not have money, job and you may be indigent but there is one thing that defines us as human beings; its dignity. The Constitution of Swaziland provides that the dignity of every human being is inviolable. This is echoed by many regional and international instruments on human rights which Swaziland is a party to.

The scholarship policy does exactly the opposite of this; it takes away the dignity of students. It makes studying and being admitted to study at the University of Swaziland (UNISWA) an affliction. The scholarship issue is long standing and dates back to the time when Constance Simelane was still the Minister of Education. By then the government made its intention clear that it doesn’t want to pay for tuition fees anymore.

This finally became a reality when the scholarship was moved from Ministry of Education to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security. This was a strategy by government to cut scholarships as it has successfully done and continues to do so. In all honesty there are mainly two institutions that have been affected by this, it’s UNISWA and the Swaziland College of Technology (SCOT). Students now, no matter how good their grades are, prefer to enroll for a diploma or associate degree because that has become the ‘priority’ for the government. SCOT is very unfortunate in that the very courses the institution offers are also offered by a new institution, which is always given priority. One wonders why government didn’t not invest in SCOT and expand it as its institution. However, for the purposes of this article I will concentrate more on UNISWA since I have been exposed to the issues there.

The reality of the matter is that government is getting away with murder here and sadly we are allowing this to happen. I have never seen a government that destroys lives of young people in broad day light.

The government says ‘the parents can afford to pay for their children at tertiary’. But the reality and the situation on the ground empirically shows that this is not real. UNISWA courses have been divided into “priority’ and ‘no priority’. The agonizing part though is that the even within the priority courses some students are still left out. The university uses its own scale to admit students and government uses its scale to award scholarships- double jeopardy. In fact not all students in priority courses get scholarships.

Despite being given scholarships in the so- called priority courses the students are starved and set up to fail. This is due to the fact that they are not given subsistence allowances. You can’t learn without food. Members of parliament and emabandla get paid for doing nothing (sitting allowances) but UNISWA students are being starved to failure.

Allowances

The ministry of labour doesn’t have a clue about the university; some students spend the whole year moving up and down the ministry offices over unpaid allowances, scholarships etc. By the time the students write exams they are stressed, frustrated and hungry hence they fail.
I have always stated and maintain that the issue of scholarships and non-payment of allowances is real and above petty politics. Human beings are being starved and this is a reality. Government needs to reconsider the way scholarships are awarded to UNISWA students.

After all, the students have an obligation to pay back the money when they finish their studies to help others. Currently, a lot of students are at home hopeless after being denied their right to learn by their own government. And nobody cares; everyone seems to be obsessed with elections than the future of young people who are the future of this country. The most unfortunate thing to note is that this affects only the poor. Politicians and people in high administrative positions have their children studying abroad.

I normally look back and say from the time when I was a student and a student leader we should have done more. Perhaps we should have all stayed home. Perhaps we should have ignored the senior students who were mainly concerned about their degrees and said to ourselves ‘we will rather close the varsity for a year or more than to allow injustice’. Yes there was a lot of pressure from parents and students but justice was never done in this matter. The question is what should be done? Why are parents quiet and sitting with their children at home? Why is civil society quiet? Why Swazis are quiet?

We have, for a long time, allowed this government to rip this country apart with its ill-informed policies and failure to govern. At Esibaya people stated that among other things they want Circular no.1 of 2010 removed but that was a never the case. By the time we wake up we will find the country languishing in an abyss of anarchy and by then we won’t be able to bail it out. At least for now we still have a chance.

Sibusiso Nhlabatsi
Former UNISWA student and
Former SRC President,
Vice President

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