FCTVE students on strike
Pini Bothoko | Thursday February 25, 2016 17:01
Yesterday (Wednesday) the irate students were reported to have blocked the gate denying everyone access into the school premises.
FCTVE’s Student Representative Council (SRC) president Tebo Thobogang told Mmegi that students are not happy over the credibility of their courses, unhygienic food and unpaid allowances.
College students are given a monthly allowance of P300 to cover their toiletry expenses.
Thobogang said they have discovered that the majority of their diploma courses are not accredited.
“What worries us is that this has been an issue of concern for years as it is reflected in the previous SRC’s minutes meetings for the three previous SRC’s but to date it’s yet to be resolved.”
The failure by the Department of Tertiary Education Financing (DTEF) to pay the allowance and college management to provide answers over accreditation of courses has clearly angered the students.
Thobogang indicated that they started studying there back in 2014 and to date he has not received his monthly allowance, whilst in some colleges students are given their monthly allowances.
“We want answers, students are furious and have boycotted lectures since Tuesday until today and have blocked the gate denying everyone access into the school,” said Thobogang.
He said for a while the SRC has been trying to find answers from the college management but there is no hope they will ever be answered in the near future.
“For a while the school management has promised to speed up the process of issues of students.
We cannot continue studying without any action being taken, we have decided to boycott lectures and will continue to do so until we are provided with a valid answer,” said Thobogang.
He said if the college management fails to answer them they would summon the Minister of Education and Skills Development, Unity Dow for answers.
He said the majority of their courses are accredited for Certificate and Advanced Diploma but not accredited for Diploma.
“We want to know our future here, we do not want to risk our lives to study for diploma courses that are not accredited.
We want the college management to provide us with concrete evidence over all the courses’ accreditation here,” said Thobogang.
He added that a lot of things are not done accordingly in the college, stating that students studying for National Diploma in Secretarial Studies wrote examinations last year November, but to date they have not yet received their results.
On Wednesday, the regional director for operations in the Ministry of Education and Skills Development (MoESD) Galesengwe Mohube addressed the students.
“Yes there is a strike at FCTVE and since Tuesday students boycotted lectures claiming to be having numerous complaints about their welfare,” Mohube told Mmegi.