Students
at the university in Swaziland where King Mswati III said he would set up a
university of transformation for the whole SADC region have protested to the Swazi
Government that its lecturers are not qualified to teach.
The
students from Limkokwing University of Creative Technology delivered a petition
to the Speaker of the House of Assembly. They also complained about lack of
chairs and desks in classrooms.
Limkokwing has been under fire in the past about the quality of its
courses and its teaching facilities. According to its website, Limkokwing in Swaziland only offers ‘associate
degrees’ which are at a level below Bachelor degrees and in many institutions
are known as diplomas.
The Swazi Observer newspaper reported on
Monday (10 October 2016) that each Swazi student pays E8,000 (US$577) a year
for tuition. The government adds an additional E33,700 as accommodation and
meal allowance and E9,000 as a book allowance.
When King
Mswati, who rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, took
over the chair of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) at the end
of August 2016, he announced that within one year he would create a university
of transformation. He said it would be housed at Limkokwing.
In June 2012, Bandile
Mkhonta, Head of Human Resource for Limkokwing in Mbabane, Swaziland, told
local media that of 53 professional staff at the
university; only one had a Ph.D doctorate. A Ph.D is usually considered by
universities to be the minimum qualification required to be given the rank of
senior lecturer.
The Swazi Observer reported Mkhonta
saying Limkokwing had fewer Ph.Ds because it was a
‘non-conventional’ university whose curriculum was mainly based on practice
than theory.
Limkokwing
in Swaziland had no staff at professor rank and no record of conducting
scholarly research.
See also
KING’S
NEW UNWORKABLE UNIVERSITY
http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2016/09/kings-new-unworkable-university.html
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