BUAN students disgruntled as courses 'unaccredited'
Larona Makhaiza | Tuesday April 25, 2023 06:00
BUAN students kick-started the peaceful demonstration on Tuesday after their subvention funds were not credited to their accounts. With the money not credited, the Student Representative Council led by Goabaone Makolobe (SRC president), took action. “There have been so many irregularities happening at our university.
First of all, we have been decrying subvention funds which were withheld from us for the longest time and they only disclosed that they received funds only after students protested,” an agitated Makolobe said.
Disgruntled by what the students termed 'BUAN management's dubious actions', the SRC president indicated that students seized the opportunity to advocate other issues that have been left pending, with one of those issues being accreditation.
“Seven years after BUAN transformed into a university, we are still crying out on issues of accreditation and now we want the management to come and address the students regarding what is the latest with accreditation of courses,” Makolobe said.
Furthermore, Makolobe revealed that BUAN students have been taking courses that are not accredited by the Botswana Qualifications Authority (BQA), with some of them not being fully accredited.
“If you can go through the BQA website, you can see the courses that have been fully accredited and it's very disappointing to find out that only seven courses are accredited in BUAN,” said a disappointed Makolobe.
With only seven courses accredited by BQA at BUAN out of 16, this means under half offered at the university are suitable. Meanwhile, other students who have been taking unaccredited courses have down the line learnt that their sweat, sleepless nights and hard work were all in vain as programmes are not recognised by BQA.
Meanwhile, BUAN Communication and Marketing Manager Onkgopotse Moreri did not dispute raised allegations by Makolobe in an interview with The Monitor. “When we transitioned into a university, all the legacy courses we came with from the Botswana College of Agriculture (BCA) were since submitted to BQA for registration and were processed for accreditation,” Moreri revealed. BUAN transitioned into a university back on November 12, 2013. It is really unfortunate to see that even now after a decade has passed courses are still not accredited. Moreri said indicating that the courses that were submitted for processing with accreditation still pending a decade later.
However, Moreri added that though their courses were not accredited, the government gave them the green light to carry on offering the courses. “The government permitted us to continue offering the courses while we await the process to be completed and remember there is bound to be a backlog since all universities are being attended to,” elaborated Moreri.
Amidst all the fracas on Friday, the BUAN management evicted all its undergraduate students from campus and set a time frame for them to be out of school parameters.
However, the decision to evict undergraduate learners from campus did not go down well with the students. The students carried on with their peaceful demonstration, demanding accountability and answers from management.
Hours later after the undergraduate students' eviction time frame lapsed, the university management roped in the police and SSG to root out the students. In circulating videos on social media platforms, it is evident the police and SSG used force on students to the point where some sustained injuries in the commotion.
Asked to comment on why the university resorted to violence when dealing with the students, Moreri responded by saying the university had to protect its private property. “A time had been set for students to have evacuated the premises.
However, they didn’t and therefore, the SSG and police had to disperse them from university premises so that we get to protect both the university and private property,” Moreri explained.
Additionally, Moreri elucidated that he could not speak for police action as he claimed that he is not aware of the procedures law enforcement agents employ when handling such incidents. The university has been closed since Friday and all undergraduate students returned home at a time they are supposed to be sitting for their semester examinations. BUAN will remain closed until further notice.