Students are not 'Money Machine': Radrodro

Minister for Education Aseri Radrodro has called for a wider collaborative approach between universities, stakeholders and the Tertiary Scholarship and Loan Service (TSLS) saying students are not “just money machines.”

Mr Radrodro responded to a revelation by TSLS head of Student Service, Avinay Kumar, where he highlighted scenarios of students engaged in runaround before securing sponsorships.

Speaking during the TSLS Handbook Launch and Stakeholder Awareness Workshop at the Holiday Inn, Suva, last Friday, Mr Kumar said miscommunication between universities and TSLS affected students’ application processes.

Mr Kumar said these infamous cases included the amendment of a particular programme’s initial “course name” to another, and failure to inform TSLS about such amendment of course names confused students.

“Let’s say, Professional Accounting and rename it to Bachelor of Professional Accounting, you will give offer letters to students to say ‘I’m offering Bachelor of Professional Accounting’ while TSLS knows that particular university is only offering Bachelor of Accounting,” he said.

The breakdown of communications often led to students running around to enroll in the correct study programme.

Mr Radrodro said: “We are more concerned about the welfare of students, making sure that they get enrolment guidelines and they get proper programmes and not just being used as a money-making machine.

“There are initiatives taken as part of the policy change for TSLS because of the feedback that has been coming from the students at the university.

“Where students get enrolled, some they don’t complete the course because the course is no longer available or the resources are not there for the university to continue the programme.”

Mr Radrodro said Government was committed to ensuring students were not forced into unnecessary confusion when it came to their sponsorships.

“This is all part of going forward. There needs to be more collaboration, need for more discussions, they all need to come together and discuss better ways to address such issues,” Mr Radrodro said.

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