REFUNDS FOR UNISWA STUDENTS WHO PAID OWN FEES LAST YEAR

MBABANE – Some returning University of Swaziland (UNISWA) students are receiving their dvuladvula in the form of allowances for last academic year and refunds for money they paid before government awarded the scholarships.

The students are those who had not made the cut to receive scholarships from government for the 2015/2016 academic year. They were in first year at the time.
These students were successful in their appeal to have government pay for them after they had not initially made the list of awardees.

Most of the students had paid their acceptance fee, which will, unfortunately, not be refunded.
Some of them had already paid their tuition fees and accommodation fees among other expenses, before they successfully appealed to government.
“It depended on the cut list. Those students who were just at the bottom of the cut list, and had the best of five subjects out of 32 points, were transferred to the appeal list,” said a student.

He said government awarded scholarships to those students who managed to make it to the appeal list in the middle of the academic year.  “For instance, if a particular faculty had its cut list predetermined at 32, then the appeal list would incorporate probably five students at the bottom of 32 depending on the collaborative decision of government and the institution,” he said.

Students who paid for themselves, as they had not received government scholarship, had to pay at least E3 000 for tuition and about E300 acceptance fee so that they could be admitted into class.
Allowance given to students in the past academic year totalled to E9 900. At least E5 500 was deducted for all those students who live on campus and food allowance was distributed approximately E1 800 per semester. It has also been ascertained that the Ministry of Labour and Social Security has already released some money to be awarded in the form of scholarships to some of the returning UNISWA students for this academic year.

Acting Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security Norman Gamedze confirmed that the ministry had started dispatching money to UNISWA students, who were officially awarded scholarships.
“All I know is that we continue to pay all those who are entitled by being awarded scholarship. I am sure they have categories but I can guarantee that they will all be eventually paid,” said Gamedze.
UNISWA Registrar Dr Salebona Simelane confirmed that the institution was aware that some of the first year students in 2015/2016, who had appealed to government for the award of scholarships, were successful in their appeals and they had received their refund for money they had paid.  This happened during the recent long vacation.  Such students would comprise a portion of the returning students.

Others had not yet received their refund because of technical issues of which the students concerned were aware.  The total number of those students was less than 20. 
They will receive their refund as soon as the technical issues were cleared. Simelane said he could not say for sure when the remainder of those who were on the appeal list, who paid for their academic fee before being awarded scholarships, would be reimbursed.  It would just depend on when the technical issues would be sorted out. 
“We will try to repay them as quickly as possible,” Simelane said. He advised those who were awarded scholarships after they had paid for themselves not to panic but approach the Student Finances Office to sort out whatever issues were pending.
“They will be paid soon, their money is available and will not be misplaced,” said Simelane.
The registrar said though he did not want to raise too much hope for students, he was confident that most returning students would get their allowances for this academic year soon. It has been gathered by this publication that those students who were granted scholarships early by government, and had made it onto the cut list for the respective faculties, received their allowances earlier and will not receive the ‘dvuladvula’.
These students are also not expecting any refund from UNISWA as they were not required to make any payment as government covered for their food allowance, tuition, project allowances and other costs required to be fully registered at the university.

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: