Scholarship students barred from universities over fees

The Zimbabwean 14 February 2014

Zimbabwean students on government scholarships to Russia are sleeping in the open at railway stations after being removed from university accommodation over failure to meet their financial obligations, writes Nelson Sibanda for The Zimbabwean.

This was revealed by the Permanent Secretary for Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology, Washington Mbizvo, when he appeared before a parliamentary committee. In reaction to the Russia crisis, the Treasury released US$54,000 to help ease the problem.

Of the US$12 million sought by the ministry in the 2014 national budget, only US$8 million was allocated by the finance ministry but nothing has been disbursed to date. For the past six years, the higher education ministry has been accruing debts due to government incapacity to meet its obligations. As a result, the ministry owed educational institutions more than US$62 million in unpaid tuition and boarding fees.
Full report on the 3News site

And Nomalanga Moyo reports for Nehanda Radio that dozens of Zimbabwean students enrolled at South Africa’s Cape Peninsula University of Technology on a Robert Mugabe scholarship have been barred from lectures and thrown out of residential halls, because the government has not paid.
Full report on the Nehanda Radio site

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