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MBABANE – There is a probability that some public institutions of higher learning might face closure should they be found not to be meeting standards set by ESHEC.

This is because Eswatini Higher Education Council (ESHEC) will embark on a full assessment exercise of government institutions of higher learning to ensure the relevancy of their programmes as to what is required by the local and international industry.

This was disclosed by the council’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr Loretta Mkhonta during a media engagement meeting that was held yesterday at the Hilton Garden Inn, in Mbabane.

ESHEC is an independent body corporate, that was established in 2015, through the Higher Education Act No.2 of 2013. It is responsible for the registration, establishment, accreditation and regulation of all institutions of higher learning. The body issues a list of all accredited institutions of higher learning in the country.

The CEO explained that in 2016, the council formulated regulations and standards and started registering private institutions of higher learning. Unfortunately, at the formation, public institution never went through the assessments that were conducted in private institutions. “Public institutions have not undergone the rigger process that ESHEC applies when conducting assessments. This is because assessments are very expensive and public institutions require a lot of resources,” she said.

The CEO said since the council had been fully fledged in terms of the budget, which is government subvention and staff complement, in the current financial year they would be focussing on public higher institutions while they were also assessing private institutions.

The CEO explained that the public institution would be assessed for full registration because they passed the provisional registration since they were already established.

These institutions include the University of Eswatini (UNESWA), Eswatini College of Technology (ECOT), William Pitcher Training College, Ngwane Teachers’ College, Southern African Nazarene University (SANU) and the Police Academy among others.

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She said while they were planning to engage on a full scale assessment they had started equipping the institutions on how they could conduct their own self-assessment before they could. She said they did not want to ambush the institutions but it was crucial that they were equipped with how they could assess themselves. She said the first institution that sprung into action was UNESWA in March.

Through the self-assessment she said they would constantly review the courses they offered to their students, if they were still relevant to the times. She said they would infuse more practical and entrepreneurship skills in every course of study. She said this would enable their graduates to be able to create businesses that align with; “quality assurance is a holistic approach covering all the processes in a higher education institution, in order to serve the students and other stakeholders in expected quality standards. The success of a quality assurance system depends on the support of the management,” she said. The exercise would be objective. Once they were found to be producing out-dated programmes they would be struck out or reviewed.

They are also equipped on how to develop programmes. Needs assessment of the project should be conducted and demonstrate that the programme is needed by the economy.

“UNESWA has submitted it’s first institutional audit. If it weren’t for the strike we would have made tremendous progress,” she said.

Dr Mkhonta noted that other public institutions were also on the pipeline, as they were working on submitting their institutional audits.

She said it was common that some institutions of higher learning would fail the full registration assessments because they then relaxed after the two-year provisional registration.

She said since they would be ensuring that even public institutions complied to the set of standards those who would be found to be worse off might suffer the consequences. “We are only praying that none of them would face closure and we are asking ourselves what the chances are for some of them to face closure,” she said. She noted that the process would not be completed over night, more especially at UNESWA. Dr Mkhonta said that was due to the fact that UNESWA had 73 programmes. Due to the fact that UNESWA offered degrees and Master Programmes, most of the skills that would be needed for the assessment would be imported. She said while they were working on ensuring that all public institutions complied they are formulating a three-year transformational strategy, developing a higher education policy. She said the existing one did not meet the needs for the sector, hence the need for the new one. She said the policy would ensure quality of the higher education teaching. The policy will state the calibre of teaching staff that should be hired in institution of higher learning.