Politician Mandisa Mashego has incurred the fury of Unisa for saying the institution’s qualifications are fake. Picture: African News Agency (ANA)
Pretoria - Unisa management want the leader of Abantu Batho Congress, Mandisa Mashego, to “apologise and withdraw” for discrediting its qualifications.
The university said it reserved the right to also legally challenge the former EFF leader in Gauteng.
“Unisa has taken note of the interview by Penuel “The Black Pen” with Mandisa Mashego, who made unjustified and unsubstantiated statements that Unisa is under investigation for fake degrees, for people writing curriculum for others, for running classes, for corruption and a lot of things.
“She also likened Unisa to some Nigerian universities she alleges have no legitimacy (though accredited).”
The university said the Unisa community should dismiss the misleading utterances of Mashego “with the contempt they deserve”.
In the podcast, the outspoken politician had said Unisa was “becoming like these Nigerian universities”.
Mashego said the institution was being investigated for fake degrees, for people who sit and write exams for others or even do the entire curriculum for them, and for operating outside their distance learning mandate by offering classes.
While pro-Unisa people criticised her comments on the continent’s biggest higher learning institution, some supported her views, particularly about subjects other than the Unisa topic, which most people had limited information about.
Speaking to Pretoria News yesterday, Mashego said she was not aware that the SRC at Unisa had lambasted her, but added she preferred not to comment on the matter further.
Secretary-general of the Unisa SRC, Shatadi Phoshoko, said they had great concern about the negative social media assertions about Unisa qualifications, which were unfounded.
“This comes after Mandisa Mashego said the university’s qualifications are fake and insinuating that Unisa is not a legitimate university. We reject these utterances with the highest contempt and disgust.
“These utterances are defamatory and have possible pernicious effects for the futures of Unisa graduates. Studying through Unisa requires the highest forms of hard work, discipline and digital resources for both learning and for final assessments, which are mostly invigilated,” she said.
Unisa is conducting graduation ceremonies that began on March 22, and will end on May 9, which will see the highest graduate output compared to all universities in the country.
“These graduates have earned their qualifications through their own determination and commitment to their studies. The majority of students who will be affected by these negative assertions about Unisa are black students, who inherently come from poor backgrounds and are dependable on qualifications to open doors of economic opportunities,” Phoshoko said.
The university’s student demographics closely approximates society, with over 73% of them black.
Pretoria News