Staff Reporter
THE National University of Lesotho (NUL) council has with immediate effect directed the institution to resume examinations after the suspension of academic activities last week.
The NUL Senate last week suspended all academic activities citing budgetary constraints due to what it said was an insufficient 2018/19 budget allocation.
NUL was allocated M99 million which is M11 million less than the M110m that it received in the 2017/18 financial year.
The Senate expressed concern over the declining government subvention over the last ten years, from M132m in 2008/09 to M99 in the current academic year.
The move was however, met with serious criticism after the Minister of Education and Training, Ntoi Rapapa branded the suspension of academic activities as “unjustifiable and shocking”.
In a statement released by NUL on Friday, the council said it held a special meeting which reviewed the Senate decision and resolved to resume the activities.
“Council directed that examinations must resume with immediate effect,” the statement reads.
“Council welcomed the government’s commitment to embark on negotiations around the issue of NUL funding which will commence on Monday 14 May 2018.
Prof Rapapa last week told our sister paper the Lesotho Times that the government was shocked by the NUL Senate’s decision to suspend academic activities at a critical time when students were supposed to be writing their end of year examinations.
He said the government expected the institution to immediately resume all academic activities.
He also said the university’s decision was all the more uncalled for as he had ensured that NUL received a tranche of M24.8 million to finance its activities for April to June this year.
“The issue of decreasing subvention does not affect NUL only- it affects all other higher learning institutions. I called all these institutions and informed them that we would immediately release the approved funds to them. We have done that and NUL has been given M24.8 million to finance its April to June activities.
“I also informed them that we were going to request more money to enable them to run their institutions and NUL’s reasons don’t hold the water because they have other sources of income like school fees and they run the Sefika Complex as well,” Prof Rapapa said.
Comments are closed.