Registration of first-year students nearing completion at Univen

The online registration of first-year students is nearing completion at the University of Venda (Univen) in Limpopo.

The university has the capacity to register 3 600 first-year students this year.

The university maintains that the registration process is running smoothly despite several complaints of technical glitches reported by students.

The registration of students has entered its second week at the university. Students are reporting several problems that have delayed their registration processes.

“I came here to be a student. They said we must wait for the system and come back at 2 0′ clock,” says student Orifha Siganunu.

“My registration took so long until it got processed because I was affected by finances, I registered first in 2024 and then I was on the waiting list up until January 15^th. I think I was supposed to register because I got the message that I was accepted. When I came to campus to register, I was told that I could not register,” says another student Nkateko Zheng.

Meanwhile, a political disagreement between SASCO and the EFF Student Command erupted outside during an SABC News interview. Students are pointing fingers at one another for some problems which they picked up during the registration phase.

The online registration of first-entering students started last week. There have been several challenges with the online system.

“Here at the University of Venda, we have got a majority of first entering students whom when they were applying for NSFAS. They applied for college not the one for the university, so when they come here when they try to register you find that NSFAS is not available on the university but college and such students we advise them to pay R5 000 because we could not link them so these are some of the issues that first entering students faced,” says Univen SRC President Vusi Mokoena.

The University of Venda has registered 2 500 first-year students so far.

“This is a very busy period where everyone is using the system, generally speaking, registration processes are going on smoothly considering the fact that we started with the first-time entering student registration on the 14th of January 2025. As of yesterday, we have already registered over 2 500 first-time entering students and according to our plan registration continues until the 31 of January 2025,” says Univen spokesperson Takalani Dzaga.

Lectures for the 2025 academic year are expected to start during the first week of February.

On matters of accommodation, the university says it’s working with new service providers to increase the capacity of student accommodation facilities.

Video: Update on student registrations University of Venda