Faulty admissions system causes headaches for DTEF

The director of DTEF, Marcus Maedza said this results in overwhelming volumes of applications and worse, duplication of sponsorship processing. "If not identified, such students end up with more than one bank account with a chance that they may be paid in two different bank accounts," he told The Monitor.Such students also end up hopping between institutions thanks to the availability of the 'other opportunity'.

Maedza acknowledged that the problem is caused in part by differing institutional calendars, which leads to a situation where students process sponsorship upon receiving offer letters even when they are not from institutions of their first choice.Asked what initiatives the DTEF would employ to address the situation, he said a centralised admissions system can be part of the solution.