MONTHLY ALLOWANCES: TO SIGN OR NOT TO SIGN?

MBABANE – UNESWA students at Mbabane Campus are reluctant to sign the re-admission forms.
UNESWA is the acronym for University of Eswatini.

The institution was closed on August 26, after the institution’s senate resolved to suspend classes because of students’ violence, vandalism, theft threats to other students and staff and non-attendance of lectures which occurred after students had convened at the institution for a meeting that ended badly.
UNESWA re-opened yesterday but the students were supposed to start signing the forms in which they would be making an undertaking not to embark on class boycotts, acts of vandalism, theft of property and intimidation of staff and students in future.

Government and the institution made it clear that if the students did not sign the forms, their scholarship agreement might be revoked. The deadline for signing the forms at UNESWA is today. Before signing the form, students have to provide their national identity card, student card and a witness.

An administrator who was tasked with helping the students sign the forms said the witness could be anyone, even a friend of the student at the tertiary, as long as they would declare that they did witness the student sign when the need arose.

He declared that the students were reluctant to sign the re-admission forms. The form has two parts which is the personal particulars and the declaration of applicant where the students make the undertaking to comply with the terms listed in the form or face a serious disciplinary hearing. 

Disrepute

“I fully understand that if I engage in conduct which is likely to bring the university into disrepute in future, including toyi-toyi, class boycott, disruption of classes, vandalism, intimidation and/or threats of intimidation to both university staff and students, I may be subjected to a serious disciplinary hearing,” reads part of the form.  

However, it was gathered that only 10 per cent of the students came through and signed on the dotted line and the rest didn’t bother at the Mbabane Campus.
After noticing that the students were reluctant to comply, the Dean of Student Affairs Musa Kunene requested an audience with them later yesterday where they (students) made a verbal plea to have the forms scrapped, claiming that they were unjust and unconstitutional.

UNESWA Registrar Dr Salebona Simelane said they didn’t get any feedback about objection from students at the Mbabane Campus. He said the students still had one full day to come to their senses and there was no need to press the panic button as yet.

“If it was after the deadline then we would be looking at a crisis but the students have the whole day today to register. The institution will not be shifting the posts on this and it would do the students good to sign,” he said.

Government tabled an improved offer to tertiary students that entails disbursing E1 690 monthly to off-campus students, and it stated that this was their final offer to the students through government’s spokesperson Percy Simelane, who was interviewed on Wednesday.

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