Ntsebeng Motsoeli
PARENTS of students at the National University of Lesotho (NUL) have called on the National Manpower Development Secretariat (NMDS) to take over the disbursement of student loans as a panacea for the persistent student protests and class boycotts.
Although the NMDS has the mandate of disbursing student loans, it has delegated this task to the NUL’s bursar’s department.
The issue of the student loans has been a thorny issue for several years and NUL is often rocked by protests by students who will be pressing the institution and the NMDS to either expeditiously release their loans or increase them every academic year.
This has led to closures of the country’s highest institution of learning.
And with just a few weeks to the opening of NUL for the start of the 2018/19 academic year, a five-member committee of parents and guardians of NUL students has called on the NMDS to take over full re4sponsibi;lity for the timeous disbursement of student loans to prevent any protests and class boycotts that could affect the smooth running of NUL.
The committee that is made of the chairperson, Tsietsi Polane, Khotso Mokupo (secretary), Nomazondo Seleteng, Teboho Tolo and Manthota Lebusa (all committee members).
They recently issued a statement calling on NMDS to transferring student loans to the NUL bursar for disbursement to students.
“The disbursement of allowances contractually is the obligation of the NMDS and it should not be delegated to NUL,” they said in the statement.
“The NMDS, not NUL, enters into contracts with individual so it only makes sense that the contracting parties should deal with their contractual obligations without involving NUL.
“The NMDS (must) ensure that contracts are concluded and payments disbursed prior to (the beginning) of the academic year for all students who are eligible for funding. It is worth noting that NMDS requires that all students who are eligible for funding must have bank accounts and this (requirement) should make it easy for the NMDS to transfer monies to students’ accounts at the earliest without fail.”
The committee further appealed to well-wishers donate to NUL to enable the institution to invest in the introduction of innovative programmes and research which would eventually enable the university to become financially self-reliant.
“Due to the ever-diminishing financial support from the government of Lesotho, the institution (NUL) is experiencing financial challenges.
“We call on the business community and the public to assist through grants and/or donations to a total change in the academic prowess and capability of our beloved national university.
“Therefore, as the parents’ representative body, we make a clarion call to the nation under the banner “Save Our National University – Collectively We Can”.
The committee said it would collaborate with the students’ representative body to understand their challenges and assist them to find ways to improve the students’ conduct on issues that affect their welfare.
The parents’ committee has also pledged to work with the students to ensure that they are not sucked into the divisive national politics.