Prioritising service delivery to KZN students

Unisa’s Dean of Students, members of his team, and the president of the National Student Representative Council (NSRC) recently visited the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Region, where they met with regional management and student leadership on the Pietermaritzburg and Durban campuses. The aim of the visit was to engage on matters relating to service delivery to students.

KZN regional management

Dr Joyce Myeza, Regional Director: KZN Region, and her team of managers were delighted to receive the Dean of Students, Dr Olwethu Sipuka, and his team to the region, especially since the 2025 registrations had not yet closed. The visit provided a valuable impetus in areas where the region was experiencing bottlenecks.

The engagement focused on how to improve student service delivery in the region, and how to provide quicker and more sustainable solutions for administrative issues. The team from the head office explained that they were visiting the region to experience first-hand how applications and registrations were progressing, and to identify pertinent challenges that troubled the region during this peak period of the year. They explained that their fact-finding mission would ultimately have a tangible impact as they would compile a report to be submitted to Unisa’s executive management, Senate, and Council for approval and implementation.

From left: Dr Joyce Myeza, Regional Director: KZN Region, Xolani Dubazane, Deputy Director: Academic and Technology Support; and Dr Olwethu Sipuka, Dean of Students

The visit gave the region an opportunity to make a submission that could change how student services would be delivered across the university. The student administrative challenges experienced in the region involved, among others, propensity letters, completion letters, module selection by final-year students, communication on higher certificate articulation, communication on qualifications being phased out, and disciplinary cases.

The visitors and their hosts felt that authority over most of these items should not reside only at the head office as students sometimes had to travel to Pretoria in order to overcome their challenges. They agreed that there was a need to devolve the power of authorisation concerning these challenges to the regions. An updated delegation of authority policy would be required to enhance efforts to improve critical student service delivery in the regions, not just in the KZN Region.

In 2024, the university received about 1,2 million applications from students wanting to enrol for the 2025 academic year. There was a stark difference between the number of applications and the number of students that could be accommodated by the South African post-school education sector in 2025. There is, therefore, a serious need for enrolment planning and targets not only at Unisa but in the entire higher education sector.

Despite this, Unisa is poised to meet its 2025 enrolment plan targets. Sipuka stated that this was a wider societal issue, and Unisa, as the African university in the service of humanity, should play a meaningful role as an agent for change in staff and students’ communities.

Myeza said regional management would always be there to assist students whenever necessary and possible. She indicated that she already had a meeting with students and student leaders in the region about challenges they wanted Unisa to resolve.

She noted the need for a healthcare facility in the region. Mental health issues among students were on the rise and posed a serious risk to staff and stakeholders on campus. Further, a lasting solution had to be found for the Wild Coast office, which closed about five years ago. There was still no alternative office that students living on the KZN South Coast and in surrounding areas could visit to access services rendered by Unisa, forcing them to travel to the Durban or Pietermaritzburg campuses.

Andile Ndlela, chairperson of the KZN Regional Student Representative Council (RSRC), said the 2025 registrations across all offices in the KZN Region were successful even though the number of walk-ins had increased, and queries were more complex than in the past. He said that the KZN student leaders really appreciated the visit by the Dean of Students since it provided an opportunity and a platform for students’ voices to be heard by the office dedicated to service delivery to students.

KZN RSRC members

The NSRC president, Nkosinathi Mabilane, echoed the sentiment of the regional chairperson, namely that centralising critical student services at the head office was not right, and requested that student service delivery be devolved to the regions where the majority of students could be served. He said that inadequate service delivery carried the risk of reputational damage to the university. Inadequate service delivery in the regions had a negative impact on students’ relationship with Unisa as a whole and, therefore, had to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

* By Siyabonga Seme, Manager: Communication and Marketing, KwaZulu-Natal Region