It is an old fight between institutions of education, students and parents. From the lower levels of education, the year-end is stressful for everyone, especially parents. When it is time to collect their children’s report cards, they have to face class teachers who demand a missing textbook, a contribution fee for a developing building etc.
Of course, teachers must collect the school’s properties back from students for those who are coming next, but how do they go about it? Parents are obliged balance the fee for the lost or misplaced textbook before they could collect the report card. This means that the report card will remain with the institution until the minimum required amount has been settled.
Although it is the responsibility of the child to take care of school property, the responsibility of the parent is to fill in missing spaces for the child such as paying back the school, what about the official constitution of the Republic of South Africa?
The school or educational institution reserves no right to hold a report card under any and all circumstances, yes including the student having lost a book or any other property of the school. This does not mean that the students are not liable for losing school property, it just means that their academic transcripts cannot and must not be used against them.
Millions of University students across the country have to rely on academic records and/ or graduation confirmation letters to hustle for work. Most companies will require those prior to the graduation day, but after that, they require one to produce the full certificate that a student can not provide due to funds owed to the institution.
These students struggle to look for work after the graduation dates if they cannot find an understanding company, one of them being the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) and this happens with public institutions, not only private ones. One might ask, why do they not find common grounds with the company a students is to work for and release the certificate on basis of a payment agreement? How are students supposed to pay off school debts if they cannot use certificate to find work?
The University of Fort Hare has just lost a second case against a student in court, one entry level law student demanding access to study, the other demanding their access to their gradution inclusion and certificate provision. The opinion remains open, everyone has their view on the matter, we just eed those views to work in favour of both the isntituion and the student to build a better nation.
M-Afrika is a journalism graduate and writes in his personal capacity
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