RUNDU – University of Namibia Rundu campus SRC deputy president Dawid Johannes has implored lecturers to refrain from postponing and cancelling classes unnecessarily, saying it has a negative impact on the performance of students. 

“There is a high failure rate at the campus due to unnecessary postponement and cancelling of classes by lecturers,” said Johahnes during the official opening of the new academic year this week. 

“The students and the leadership are questioning the reasons as to why we evaluate lecturers and other service providers. The knowledge we have is that the evaluations serve as testimony on how the lecturers teach, treat and render education service to students, so that there could be improvements at the end of the day but it doesn’t happen.” 

He highlighted other challenges facing the Rundu campus, including concerns that the institution fails to fund recreational activities. “There is a lack of hostel accommodation, lack of computers, poor sports facilities and a tiny library which is unable to accommodate the high number of students,” he said.

Johannes welcomed first year students who were encouraged to focus on the goal of taking good results home. “There are students who miss out on their targets because of the life they find at the tertiary institution and by the time they realise it, it will be too late and at the end of the day get poor outcomes. For these reasons, I urge you all, especially first years to stay calm, be yourselves, remain focused, study hard and attend all the university programmes,” he said. 

Johannes noted that the working relationship between the university and the Namibia Students Financial Assistance Fund (NSFAF) should not disadvantage students in any manner. “And sometimes they are never paid due to issues of outstanding or delayed invoices, and the services should be decentralised in a sense that the invoices should be sent straight from the satellite campuses to the NSFAF head office,” he said.
– jmuyamba@nepc.com.na