King
Mswati III has failed in his bid to have a new SADC-wide university up and
running in Swaziland by August 2017.
Now, his
supporters are saying that only a concept note will be submitted to a Heads of
State Summit in August.
King
Mswati, who rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch,
announced in August 2016 after assuming the chair of the Southern African
Development Community (SADC) that a university of transformation taking
students from all over the SADC region would open by the time he stood down as
chair.
Both the Times of Swaziland, the only independent daily newspaper in the
kingdom, and the Swazi Observer, which is in effect owned by the
King, reported on 31 August 2016 that King Mswati told the SADC heads of state
summit held at Lozitha, ‘This initiative will give new hope and opportunity to
our youth and our women. The intention is to have the first intake of students
prior to the 37th SADC summit in 2017.’
Later, he
announced that the new university would be hosted by
Limkokwing University, a private institution which has come under fire for
its poor standards.
Now, the Sunday Observer (19 March 2017) has
reported that a concept note ‘stipulating the governance, legal requirements
and programmes [at the proposed university] would be submitted to the 37th
Ordinary Summit of Heads of State in August.’ No revised date has been set for
the university’s opening.
The Observer, which was called a ‘pure propaganda machine for the royal family’ in a report on press freedom by
the Media Institute of Southern Africa, said this move showed, ‘that the plan
to establish the university was well thought out’.
See also
KING’S NEW UNWORKABLE UNIVERSITY
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