The Department of Tertiary Education and Financing says they are awaiting a report from the Tertiary Education Council on whether the ABM University should pay back close to a P1 million to government paid for students at the university.
Both TEC and DTEF have confirmed that students who were sponsored to study computer engineering could not complete their two-year studies as a result of errors relating to the course at ABM.
Students who did not want to be identified for fear of reprisals have accused the TEC and DTEF of hiding the truth about their stay at ABM, arguing that they had long complained about the shortage of lecturers and service delivery at the institution.
Tertiary Education Council Executive Secretary, Patrick Molotsi, confirmed that the government has lost close to P1 million after ABM University made an error by admitting students who were not qualified to study Computer Engineering Course.
“But we cannot hold the institution accountable alone because there were other issues. Students were failing and we had taken a decision to bar the University from teaching the same course,”
Dr Molotsi said, adding that there was a problem relating to the United Kingdom franchise.
“We could no longer allow the university to offer the course,” he said.
In a statement that angered students, Dr Molotsi added that the students were unable to perform because most of them were not qualified to do the course in the first place.
He said that as result, the government lost close to P1 million that was paid to ABM for their tuition fee for 12-month period.
Dr Molotsi said that they also found that some of the institutions such as ABM University were not qualified to offer some programmes since the introduction of a new regulatory regime in the UK.
This resulted in Government stopping students from continuing studying the course at ABM.
Department of Tertiary Education Financing Director, Marcus Maedza, said that if the school is found to have been careless, they will have to refund the government.
He said that they would recover the money from the institution after the Tertiary Education Council advised them to do so. “We are still waiting for a report and if TEC advises us to recover the money we will go ahead,” he said.
