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Re-sponsorship is not an entitlement- Letsholathebe

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Delivering a statement on tertiary education in Parliament yesterday, Letsholathebe indicated that most of their challenges in this academic year arose from the re-sponsorship applications they had opened. “More students had applied for re-sponsorship and progression due to financial constraints we could not cover them all and priority was given to those whose credits were about to expire,” Letsholathebe said.

Due to the challenges that presented itself with the ensuing of the re-sponsorship and the progression sponsorships, the minister revealed that government was able to only sponsor less than 6 000 students. “Those previously sponsored and were terminated from sponsorship due to various reasons including poor academic performance; To this end a total of 4 613 students have been re sponsored this academic year,” he said. Letsholathebe acknowledged that the ministry had wished to sponsor more but due to constraints they only managed this lot. For progression, he indicated that the ministry was only able to issue 498 students and these were the students that move from diploma level to degree levels.

“I wish to state that pursuant to Section 9 of the DTEF MOA signed with students, repeat sponsorship is not an entitlement and may be granted at the discretion of government upon receipt of an application for such by the students,” Letsholathebe claimed.

He also disclosed that for the 2024/ 2025 academic year a total 16 291 students were sponsored by government to pursue undergraduate studies. The minister revealed that they had to deal with a number of applications which proved to be a challenge to them.

Meanwhile, Letsholathebe disclosed that new students formed more than 50% of the 16 291 students sponsored for this academic year. “New students’ category is students who are freshly graduated from form 5 under the BGCSE or IGCSE circular. The new student’s category is made up of mainstream students and there are total of 11 180 new students that have been sponsored,” he revealed.