The University of South Africa (UNISA) has sidestepped a public confrontation with the South African Students Congress (SASCO) over calls for the axing of its vice-principal for ICT, saying the matter will be handled internally.
SASCO wants the vice-principal for ICT removed after last week’s technology glitches, which resulted in some students battling to submit assignments and exams online.
Students who sat for the online exam last week experienced “technical challenges” leading to a barrage of negative comments on social media.
UNISA has since apologised to students for the problems, and today responded to SASCO’s calls, saying: “Requests that the university receives from its stakeholders, student structures included, are dealt with through internal processes and not through discourse in the media. The memo you are referring to is no exception.
“It will be processed through internal processes ,including interaction with the student representative council.”
It added: “UNISA has recently communicated to the media about the examination glitches that it experienced on 24 and 25 October 2022. The university has duly apologised to affected students. UNISA monitors the examination sessions via its various structures and decides on the way forward.
“Depending on the nature of the challenge experienced per sitting/session, in some instances, additional time is allocated to students to make up for the lost time. In other instances, some examinations could be rescheduled.
“In the case of the examination sessions of 24 and 25 October 2022, additional time of 45 minutes was allocated to students to make up for lost time.”
According to UNISA, its ICT services department frequently implements measures aimed at improving security (authentication) features of the online examinations to ensure the credibility of the examinations remains intact.
“The university communicates with students on its official communication platforms as and when challenges are identified. In addition, colleges communicate with affected students via its official communication platforms.”
By the end of this examination cycle, UNISA says, more than 1 000 modules will have been written.
“No other university on the continent has such volumes of examination sessions, modules and number of candidates writing. In the grand scheme of things, only a minor fraction of challenges are experienced as compared to those sessions that are/were delivered successfully.”
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