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The North West University campus in Mahikeng was forced to close on Monday after students embarked on a seven day national shutdown of all public universities.
Some prospective students at the North West University’s Mahikeng campus say they are frustrated, as they have not gotten clear responses to their applications. The campus started registering first-year students last week for the 2025 academic year.
It says it has received 390,000 applications but only has space for 3,800 new students. So far, it has registered 2,889 new students.
Uncertain about their academic future, prospective students queued everyday to check the status of their applications.
Some say they are frustrated by the system used by the university.
“I am just here to check my status, because I have been coming here a couple of times and they have been sending us back home saying we must come back on Monday and Tuesday. So, I want to understand why my application is unsuccessful because they are not giving me a valid reason,” says one of the applicants.
“I applied for space last year. They sent a message saying my application was unsuccessful due to capacity. So, today I came to check if there is space. If I don’t find space here, I will go look for space at another university,” says another applicant.
Students’ formations are equally annoyed.
“The other issue that we have is the students that were rejected due to them not qualifying or not them having enough marks for their courses based on their Grade 11 marks. But the only issue right now is most of the student that were rejected during the year they qualify for the courses that they applied for. So, we are trying to speak with the management, and we are trying to come up with solutions to help those students who were rejected,” says Sasco representative, Katlego Rasebitse.
The EFF’s Tebogo Dikale has criticised the university for raising false hopes.
“How could you give people conditional offers knowing that there’s no additional space? Then students came. We did manage to help a few, those who have higher APS. And also, we found out that if a student is being rejected due to capacity, they are sent to Potch. Meaning we are not treated equally. So, the institution could have communicated well that there is no space for students, rather than sending conditional offers and telling them to come on Monday and Tuesday,” says Dikale.
Meanwhile, campus management says they have received more applications than they had anticipated.
“If you were provisionally accepted on your Grade 11 results and your Grade 12 did not meet the admission criteria of the university, obviously you will be unsuccessful. Those that are provisional, the Grade12 results that meet the criteria those are 900. It’s more than other two campuses and those we are finalising as soon as possible. But students must submit documents. They need financial clearance and when all that is done then registration will take place,” says Professor Sonia Swanepoel, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Mahikeng campus.
They say they are in the process of assisting the remaining 900 deserving students.
Video: Queues at North West University as student placements are finalised
