Pretoria - In his first legal victory leading to his future as part of the legal fraternity, a student took on Walter Sisulu University after it accepted him into its Bachelor of Laws degree programme, but later told him it was already full.
Milela Mbana, however, didn’t let this stumbling block stand in the way of his chosen career. He took on the university in the Eastern Cape High Court, sitting in Mthatha, and won.
The court ordered the university to register him for this degree within two days of this order. It said the conduct of the university “stands in the way of the applicant exercising his right to further education”.
Mbana turned to court on an urgent basis to set aside the university’s decision to allocate his space to another student. This, while he had timeously fulfilled and met all the conditions for his registration.
The tenacious youngster was 17 in July last year when he submitted his online application to the university.
He was in Grade 12 at St John’s College in Mthatha. After completing Grade 12 with an endorsement for a bachelor’s degree, he received acceptance offers from various universities but chose Walter Sisulu University.
He said on the same day that he received the offer, he accepted it and informed the university by phone. He paid the registration fee of R4 600 and emailed proof of payment, and requested registration clearance.
He was cleared on the same day and was able to access the online registration portal. He attempted to register on the same day but his numerous attempts to submit his registration failed, as the registration portal indicated that the intake for the Bachelor of Laws degree programme was full.
The university registrar explained that the university reserved the right to admit or refuse admission to specific qualification programmes, based on its targets and capacity to offer the qualifications and programmes concerned.
Therefore, he said, only a limited number of students could be considered for admission. According to him, the university received 509 000 applications for admission to study various first-year courses. It had 7 175 spaces available for first-year students.
The law faculty could only register 75 first-year students. However, it decided to increase the number of admissions to 276 despite the fact it could only accommodate 75.
The registrar explained that the university was not allowed to over-subscribe for any course and, therefore, could not register students above the determined number, regardless of the fact that they may have been issued with admission letters.
The registrar said the admission letter merely confirmed that the applicant met the admission requirements for the Bachelor of Laws degree and offered him an opportunity to register, but it was no guarantee, as it was on a first come, first served basis.
The court said there was a huge demand for education space in public institutions all the way up to tertiary education institutions such as this university. “This is more so as the university serves some of the very poor communities in this country, most of whom are trapped in poverty in the townships and rural areas.
“Their only hope of escaping the shackles of poverty is further education at institutions such as this.”
It added that it seemed as if the registrar was less concerned about the possibility of the course becoming over-subscribed as he seemed to believe that he could simply and willy- nilly prevent the excess students from registering.
“It is difficult to understand how issuing 276 admission letters with no conditions other than the three days within which to register for 75 spaces made sense for a university that is in a country where there are a huge number of applications that can be allowed to register.”
The court said it hoped the university was not prepared to play “Russian roulette” with the career aspirations and huge thirst and hunger for access to higher education by many young people who were trying to break the generational backbone of poverty.
Pretoria News