Walter Sisulu University is embroiled in a controversy over its decision to offer a science degree without accreditation.
The Bachelor of Science degree in Prosthetic and Orthotics trains students to become professionals in clinical disciplines that deal with artificial limbs for people with amputations and supportive devices for people with musculo-skeletal weakness or neurological disorders.
The revelation that the university has been offering the degree for the past seven years although the Health Professionals Council of SA, department of higher education (DHET) and other bodies had not given them the green light was presented to the university council in its last sitting.
This was revealed in a chain of e-mails between WSU, DHET and the accreditation bodies.
The e-mails raise the issue with three vice-chancellors, starting as far back as 2013 with former WSU administrator Professor Johan van Staden.
In the first letter, the DHET recommends that the university stop offering the qualification until it is accredited.
It remains unclear what would happen with the hundreds of graduates who have gone through the system.
The unit is housed at the Mthatha campus, and is part of the health sciences department. It's laboratories for practical studies are housed at the Nelson Mandela Hospital.
The Dispatch has seen minutes of a follow-up meeting held on August 28 with currently registered students. The register shows 74 students: five in first year, 30 in second, 17 in third and 22 final-year students.
University spokesperson Yonela Tukwayo said they were dealing with the situation.
“We are in discussions with the department of higher education and training and another university to ensure that the current students do in fact graduate. Sister universities are helping us solve the problem,” said Tukwayo.
She assured the affected students that all was in order.
“We are in constant consultation to assure the BSc Prosthetic and Orthotics students that a solution is about to be found with the support of the department,” said Tukwayo.
The e-mails show that the university has been sending incomplete applications for accreditation since 2014, with the most recent attempt in 2017.
Two months ago, the affected students first met with the dean of social sciences, Nonceba Mabovula, to voice their fears about the status of their degree. In the minutes recorded by the students, the students wanted to know how the university planned to resolve their problem.
The students had picked up that there were discussions with the Durban University of Technology (DUT) to send some of the students there for training.
The students had asked: ”What if DUT does not have space for us?”
The students also wanted to know who would be paying for them to travel to Durban and stay there.
One of the students, who attended the meeting with the dean, said they were shocked when they heard rumours that their qualification was not accredited.
She said she was not sure how she was going to tell her parents.
“ Maybe it’s a good idea that it is in the newspapers.
“They [my parents] will hear it from the paper.
“I am worried we are doing a bogus qualification and we are not getting the right answers from the university.
“The university is not being transparent,” she said.
In 2011 the SA Institute of Chartered Accountants refused to approve a WSU application to offer the BCom (accounting) degree.
The BCom was only reaccredited this year.
The university suffered another major blow last year when the Council for Higher Education withdrew rights for WSU to offer an LLB degree.
This forced the university to shut down the LLB first year course that was to have started in January.
WSU is now busy with a “teaching out phase” for its LLB students still in the system.
It is receiving assistance from accredited institutions...