Spring of hope, winter of despair for Ikhala College

A top performing college in the Eastern Cape is struggling with huge staff shortages, leaving students without lecturers to teach them, as well as not enough textbooks.

Yet Ikhala College made the list of the top 20 colleges in SA.

While the college has big infrastructure progress projects planned, operation challenges dominated Friday’s state of the college address at Roydon in the Chris Hani district.

Acting deputy principal in registration services, Africa Mgaleli, said nearly 1,000 students did not have lecturers for their classes.

Mgaleli said combined figures for three campuses revealed that about 970 students did not have lecturers. “I have not added up campuses where the campus managers have devised means to save the situation.

“There is a group of 60-plus students who have been told to stay at home because there are no lecturers. That is the reality of the college,” he said.

A number of students had no textbooks either.

Staff attending the address chorused Mgaleli’s remarks, and urged him to speak out.

Mgaleli said he wanted the college to address the shortages, but also understood the challenges the institution faced.

Mgaleli said: “We are having this event during a difficult time in our college where the structures of the college are not qualitatively in place.

“The leadership of the college are the authors of this; the governance of the college is not there, some well-established structures of the college have collapsed and that makes it difficult for this college which has history.”

He reminded staff that they were teachers imparting knowledge and skills.

“We must teach and we must resource those students.

“It pains me that three weeks ago a parent circulated a voice note on social media and you could feel her pain.

“She said her son would return from campus for four weeks having had no lecturers.

“As a parent, she had already paid the R1,000 registration fee. That pains me.”

Mgaleli quoted from Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

He said this epitomised the state of the college and called on the team to restore the college to its golden days.

Outgoing acting principal, Mqondisi Bhikisha, said the problem with the delay in textbooks was that the college was faced with litigation from service providers.

“The other challenge is the issue of recruitment. There were a lot of squabbles.

“We had to put a process in place to ensure that labour unions, staff and council could see that recruitment was fair and transparent. However, this takes longer,” he said.

Bhikisha said they were also held back by “a post-provision norm” that placed a moratorium on new employment up until November last year.

“We have started advertising for positions for support staff as well as academic staff.

“We are dealing with an open process which I think by the end of the year can guarantee that all posts will be filled with the correct person in terms of the posts.” Addressing the shortage of textbooks, he said: “We had advertised a three-year contract for textbooks and appointed a service provider.

“However, when the textbooks were about to be delivered, we were served with a lawsuit by another service provider.

“The case is still being adjudicated, but we are doing everything we can to ensure students receive their textbooks.”

Despite all this, he said Ikhala ranked among SA’s top 20 performing colleges.

He highlighted the college’s improving student results.

“Since I came in the performance was 32% and I pushed them to 67% in the certification rate.”

Bhikisha said higher education minister Blade Nzimande had said the college’s new principal would be appointed by April 1.

There is a group of 60-plus students who have been told to stay at home because there are no lecturers. That is the reality of the college