ONGWEDIVA – A large number of first year students from the International University of Management expressed their disappointment to the media after finding out that the Namibia Students Financial Assistance Fund is not going to fund the new Logistics and Transport Management course they registered for this year.
IUM students, who requested anonymity, said when they registered for the course, they were never informed that it will take time for the course to get accredited by Namibia Qualification Authority (NQA). “We surprisingly just got rejection letters from NSFAF stating they are not going to pay for our course because it is not accredited by NQA,” said one of the students.
“The students further said most of them are unable to pay for that course on their own because it is expensive. Our parents are still not aware of this incident and we are very scared of approaching them to tell them something like this.”
“Most of the parents are already finding it hard to make a living because they are not employed and telling them this will just make things worse,” said a student.
The university’s spokesperson Jerry Munyama said they announced to the students during registrations that the course is new in the institution and it is not yet accredited by NQA. He added the institution also informed the students that it will take time for the accreditation process because NQA has a lot of procedures they follow to accredit a course.
Munyama further went on to say that the university is aware of this incident and there is nothing they can currently do because they are still waiting for the accreditation process to be completed by NQA.
However, the university has put some measures in place for students who owe the school to pay any amount they have to sit for their examinations.
“The students should not panic because of this issue. The process will just be completed with time and everything will get back to normal,” added Munyama. He also said that he never experienced any incident where NQA rejected a new course introduced at IUM. “They always come through, accredit the course so that NSFAF funds for it, and they will definitely do the same for this course, it is just a matter of time,” said Munyama.