New Mpumalanga university to have first intake next year
STUDENTS ‘ WILL BE PART OF HISTORY ’
THE Department of Higher Education and Training will spend R1-billion building the new university in Mpumalanga.
Speaking at an imbizo at Nsikazi Stadium in Kabokweni just outside White River yesterday, Minister of Higher Education Blade Nzimande said the money would be used over three years.
Construction of the University of Mpumalanga will start next year, and the building will officially be opened to students in 2015. But the university will have its first intake next year and will enrol 150 students.
Nzimande said the university was not going to start with big numbers in order to “build a strong foundation ”. He said those students who would be accepted to study at the institution should consider themselves “lucky ”. “They will go down in history as having been the first to be enrolled at the University of Mpumalanga,” he said.
The Siyabuswa Teachers College in the province will fall under the university next year, according to Nzimande. However, the university would also start with a few aca- demic programmes of its own such as wild life management, tourism and agricultural studies.
Nzimande said although the programmes would be the “key features ” of the university, other programmes such as computer, engi- neering and health studies would be added as it develops. The university, which will be built in Nelspruit in the Mbombela municipality, is expected to have several other campuses in the province as it grows.
Speaking at the imbizo, the exec- utive mayor of Mbombela municipality Cathrine Dlamini said the province had been waiting in anticipation for many years to have a university of its own.
She said the institution would not only assist students from the province, but would also benefit people from neighbouring countries such as Swaziland and Mozambique.
Dlamini said higher education was expensive for the people of the province, which is known to be “rural and poor”, because parents had to bear the expensive costs of sending their children to other provinces to access universities.
She said the majority of students from the province are forced to pay for accommodation and transport at provinces where they study, which was sometimes higher than tuition costs. “We are talking about money that parents from this province do not have,” she said.
Dlamini said the province was grateful that it now had its own
university.
Community members gathered at the imbizo also welcomed the university, and parents were glad that their children would now study closer to home.
However, they also raised concerns about the number of the first intake, saying it was too small.
Others suggested that it be increased to at least accommodate 200 students.
The department’s director-general, Gwebs Qonde, promised the crowd that he would look into their complaint.
“What we do not want is to enrol more children and then not have lecturers to teach them,” he said.
Nzimande said the university was still looking for lecturers, and they were scarce.
Nzimande will officially launch the university today.
Meanwhile, the closing date for applications at the institution is January 10.