UNIVERSITY LECTURERS ‘NOT QUALIFIED’

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