UNESWA STUDENTS BOYCOTT OVER DELAYED REFUNDS

MATSAPHA – Hardly three days after opening for the 2019/20 academic year, UNESWA students from Mbabane and Kwaluseni Campuses boycotted classes yesterday.

In fact, according to the University of Eswatini (UNESWA) Students Representative Council (SRC) President, Sakhile Ndzimandze, students from Mbabane Campus did not attend classes since Monday.

Grievance

Their main grievance is delayed caution fee refunds for the previous academic year (2018/19), which they were supposed to receive when they closed at the end of the last semester.

It has been gathered that most of them had not received it while a few received theirs shortly after the institution opened for the current academic year.
A caution fee is an amount that the students pay when they register at the university, which is not refunded if they damage something or owe money at the end of their academic year.

Currently, the caution fee at UNESWA is E280 per student.
Following their class boycott since the opening of the institution on Monday, yesterday the students from Mbabane Campus descended to Kwaluseni Campus where they started by locking the main gate before proceeding to lecture rooms to disrupt lectures in a bid to force their colleagues to join them.
As a result, classes were suspended at the campus and the students marched around the institution, including dormitories where they compelled their colleagues to join them.

The students eventually gathered at the Student Union Hall where Ndzimandze addressed them.  He said they did not plan the class boycott but that it took place because the institution was allegedly not ready to open.

Lectures

He said this was because it failed to process their caution fee of the last academic year, something which, according to him, proved that it had a lot to deal with before being ready to have lectures.

Afterwards, Ndzimandze then gave the floor to representatives of the bursar’s office to address the students.
They said in the morning, the bursar issued a memorandum alerting the students that those who did not receive their caution fee refunds would get them by tomorrow.

However, the representatives of the bursar’s office highlighted that those who would be refunded their monies by tomorrow were students who had undergone the process of clearing with the warden’s office to ensure that they did not owe the institution anything.

They added that students who did not clear with the warden’s office, as well as those who used their caution fee deposits for intervarsity games would not be part of the payments which were being processed.  They said the refunds would be paid to eligible students from the three campuses; Kwaluseni, Luyengo and Mbabane. The representatives then apologised to the students for inconveniences which were caused by the delays of processing their refunds.

When the students asked what caused the delay, they were told that it was because the institution was using a new registration system.
Meanwhile, the SRC president said today, students would meet in their respective campuses to decide a way forward regarding the matter.

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