Tokelo Khausela
THE Lesotho Agricultural College (LAC) is failing to provide internationally accredited programmes because it cannot meet the required standards to be recognised as an institution of higher learning.
According to the college’s acting principal, ‘Mamoeketsi Ntimo, one of the reasons why the institution found itself in such a dire situation was its lack of autonomy and poor funding by the government.
The college falls under the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, and Ms Ntimo attributed LAC’s problems to this lack of independence.
Speaking to parliament’s Social Cluster Committee on Tuesday this week, Ms Ntimo insisted LAC was finding it difficult to operate because it was “administratively” run by the ministry.
The committee had convened a meeting with the ministries of agriculture, education and finance to discuss the transition of LAC into an autonomous institution.
“The resources we need are provided by the ministry of agriculture and this means we cannot execute our mandate effectively because they are limited and controlled elsewhere,” Ms Ntimo told the committee.
“When the ministry budgets, it divides its funds for all its departments, including LAC. Realistically, when it decides to cut costs, it cuts across all departments and this has resulted in us having difficulties in proving proper practicals for our students.”
Ms Ntimo said although some of the students paid their own tuition fees and were not sponsored by the state, the college could not use these funds as they were deposited into government’s account.
“This means as a school, we have nothing to administer the academics with,” she said.
“Another challenge is that staff-recruitment is done by the ministry of agriculture itself through the public service. This hinders us from getting the quality needed for us to produce the best at the school.
“Even when we try to hire part-time teachers, the biggest challenge is that there are no allowances
given to those who have come to our rescue. The current staff is made up of 40 percent qualified and experienced teachers, 60 percent of which are part-time.
“We are failing dismally to perform and provide the calibre of education needed. We need to be autonomous as this will enable us to comply and work efficiently for our school.
“We used to have a bridging course but we had to cancel it. Our part-time teachers are no longer putting much effort because they have not been paid since September last year. We have been told that their tenure ends this month,” she said, further telling the committee that some staff members the college “desperately” needed had resigned due to those “harsh” working conditions.
Ms Ntimo also said the school was preparing to re-open next month but she did not know how they would cope without the required resources.
“For instance, the programme of forestry and resource management has three teachers only. The rest are part-time so you would ask yourself how the programme is going to survive. The diploma in agricultural education was suspended last year,” she said.
Speaking to the same parliamentary committee, the director of legal affairs in the Ministry of Education, Santi Mofoka, said the law that established LAC needed
to be reviewed for the college to be independent.
“The solution is to go back and assess its mandate so we can establish the school through the Higher Learning Institutions Act. We would then be able to implement structures needed for it to act as an autonomy,” Mr Mofoka said.
Mr Mofoka emphasised that accreditation was important because it would be a problem to have graduates who were not recognised or accredited.
