Andrew Kathindi
The Namibia National Students Organisation (NANSO) says students should not have to pay full tuition fees while not receiving full tuition services.
NANSO Secretary-General, Patience Masua speaking to Windhoek Observer, said it doesn’t make sense for education institutions to charge full school fees in the midst of the world wide pandemic and national state of emergency, given that all students have been at home.
“No institution can demand full costs if they don’t deliver services at full capacity. If you’re not paying for electricity, water, full salaries etc, there’s no way that you can demand full fees. Even if you’re doing online learning, you’re not operating at full capacity because the service you’re providing is online and not a full-time service that students would ordinarily have to receive,” said Masua.
“If you don’t operate at maximum capacity you cannot demand for all 100 percent of the fees, it doesn’t make sense, particularly because of the pandemic we’re facing.”
Responding to questions about the Ministry of Higher Education’s position regarding student fees, Executive Director, Alfred van Kent said the matter was complex.
“On the one side you have Higher Education Institutions (HEI) who has committed to produce and upload online materials. Lecturers and administrative staff who are also parents, depend on salaries, services and contracts to be honoured. For private HEI, their revenue comes mainly from students,” he said.
He added that the socio-economic issues brought on by the pandemic are real and the ministry is currently engaging student leaders pertaining support strategies for all who are enrolled.
Efforts to reach the Students Union of Namibia (SUN) President, Simon Amunime, for comment proved futile as his phone was unavailable.
Despite demanding student fees in full, the International University of Management (IUM) has announced that it will cut its staff’s salaries by 40 percent.
Meanwhile according to statistics provided to NANSO by Namibia Council for Higher Education (NCHE) 34,850 tertiary students don’t have access to laptops to even participate in the online learning alternative that has been made available by most universities.
Masua said after reaching out to various institutions, the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) and the University of Namibia (UNAM) have agreed to provide students data dongles after the Namibia Students Financial Assistance Fund (NSFAF) announced that it was giving each student a payout to buy a laptop.
“It would be pointless for students to have laptops without access to any software for e-learning. But even so, you have some students staying 8-20 in one household. Even if you have the hardware, there is no accessibility (no data) and, no conducive learning that can take place. In university they have hostels and libraries. Environment plays a big role to learning,” she said.
Masua said on their part, NANSO has given maximum efforts, both in terms of hardware and software to voice the concerns of the students and learners in their engagements with the various stakeholders. She said the organization has also delivered food parcels in the Khomas region, in the Coastal region and will soon be going to the south, east and northern regions for that purpose in due course to mitigate some of the negative impacts of the pandemic on students.
Currently schools are slated to open on August 3 for face-to-face teaching, however there is no set date for the re-opening of tertiary institutions. Masua said she is tentatively optimistic about government’s decision to reopen the schools but was wary of the August date’s impact on next year’s school calendar year.
“The reason why government made that decision is to protect the quality of education and also the health of the learners. If the learners go back to school, they will be out of control. We are in talks with government to have a transitional approach. The Ministry of Basic Education has responded very positively to the suggestion of a transitional approach so that we protect the academic year that will end only in December. For students at tertiary institutions, they will only open at the end of the State of Emergency.
“We welcome the fact that the health of students is a priority, but we don’t welcome any decision that would be the detriment of those studying in schools and universities,” she said.
