This week, the University of Botswana (UB) made newspaper headlines, albeit for the wrong reasons. The source of controversy this week, we understand, was a new admission system which sought to operate on a first come first served basis for prospective students who wish to join the University for the academic year 2010/2011.
It’s not yet clear to us why university authorities attempted to turn that once admirable institution into a gambling casino.
We are told UB had hoped the new system would shorten the admission process from months into days and as such all those eligible to apply were advised to hurry up in submitting their application forms.
Obviously attracted to the idea of first come first served, the learners flocked to UB in large numbers with the hope of filling their application forms. By Monday this week, the University’s main campus was filled with prospective applicants. The stampede extended to the corridors, offices, hallways and reduced some of those interested in applying into vagrants as they wondered helplessly and purposelessly around the campus.
It was also reported that as early as 3am, university hopefuls would be found queuing outside the UB.
The ones that didn’t have accommodation in Gaborone allegedly slept in student halls or at the university stadium.
At a press conference this week, the UB officials admitted that the new admission initiative had failed and the Director of Public Affairs, Reetsang Mhitshane, revealed that the system was causing unnecessary chaos and that as a result the University would revert to the old system.
The first come first served initiative had resulted in hopefuls stampeding at the university premises in the hope that they would be accepted because they came first.
What a hoax! Since when has entry into University ever been determined through queues?
Has university administrators become so lazy?
There used to be a time when University of Botswana cherished its integrity very dearly.
That was the time when the university espoused to be one of the best in Africa and the world.
That was a time when administrators would meticulously go through each application to pick the very best.
That time, it seems, is now history.
How sad.
Although we are not a part of the university, our belief is that selection process forms a very important part of the university strategy.
Being so, it has a direct bearing on the integrity of both the University Senate and Council.
Selection process strikes at the heart of the university’s mission to attract and produce the best talent.
Now if such a strategy can be left to a “toss” exercise of first come first served then we are in trouble.
Both the Senate and Council should take responsibility and resign.
We have no wish to talk about the executive management for it would seem like for now the university is rudderless.
There is a general culture of encouraging queues across the country, especially within the public service. However, being a place of higher learning we expect better from UB. A University should not just be a place for ideas; it should also offer feasible solutions to challenging problems in society and even within its corridors.
Over the years, our University has earned stripes as the country’s sole institution of learning which has produced the cr├¿me dela creame of our society. However, the latest incident smacks of poor planning by UB management. The whole drama threatens to shake the University’s image.
It is disappointing that the University could not foresee all this. There were adverts that were flighted on Botswana Television (Btv) and other print media outlets. It’s shocking to learn that all this time UB was campaigning to shorten the application time without taking the logistics of the whole process into consideration.
We understand one of the challenges was that UB personnel were just not ready for the new system. However it appears UB was in a hurry. Apart from shortage of manpower, we also understand that there was also no contingency plan.
Although the University admits it erred, that cannot be enough.
What we find hilarious is that it happened in the first place.
We are not saying the University should reimburse all those that were disadvantaged by this system, but an apology in our view is not enough. The University needs to introspect and come up with a comprehensive admission system. How can the University allow itself to be caught napping by such a basic thing like admissions?
Irrespective of the fact that at the time of planning the motive behind the first come first serve idea might have been made in good faith, the implementation shows that certain considerations which should have been prioritised were not factored in. How else can one explain the chaos that erupted at UB this week?
We are indebted to the Minister of Education, Pelonomi VensonÔÇôMoitoi for her intervention.
She saved what was fast mutating into a disaster.
UB management should not be allowed to waste the taxpayer’s money through its crazy litmus tests. It is clear UB was never interested in doing the job efficiently because disposing off the applications quickly does not mean quality service has to be sacrificed.
We have in the past registered our displeasure that in recent years the University of Botswana standards have degenerated.
Graduates produced from that place are for most of the time semi-illiterate.
Those of us in the work place know that many such graduates are unable to stitch a single grammatically correct sentence.
These are the issues that the university should address, even if it means cutting enrolment back by half.
