The North West Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has raised concerns regarding the first-year student’s intake target set by the National Department of Agriculture for the province.
MEC for Agriculture Madoda Sambatha told Newsnote that following his oversight visit to the Potchefstroom College of Agriculture, the college could register more than the limit set by the national department.
This emerged when he was conducting an oversight visit at the campus, to observe the registration process of first year students yesterday.
“We now have a restriction on numbers and it’s the matter that the province is not happy with.
On our capacity at the Potchefstroom College of Agriculture, we are convinced that we can register and admit more than 150 or 200 (students).
But as things stands because of the decision on the number of registrations for the first years by the national department, its nationally 800 for all colleges and North West has 170 which is 100 in Potchefstroom and 70 in Taung, so we are not happy with that,” said Sambatha.
In addition, the MEC said he’ll also visit Taung College of Agriculture to observe the registration process and its readiness for the 2025 academic year.
“Another reason for the visit again to Potchefstroom College of Agriculture is that the registration dates are different between Taung College of Agriculture and Potchefstroom College of Agriculture otherwise I’ll be visiting Taung perhaps next week.
So, I went to Potchefstroom because today was the last day of registration,” explained Sambatha.
The MEC has however commended the management, staff and students at both colleges for an excellent academic performance.
“The pass rate for the final year has always been consistent with Taung achieving 95% and Potchefstroom reaching 98% pass rate.
We’re doing very well in terms of the academic performance, in fact the quality has not collapsed in both colleges despite some of the challenges facing these colleges, but it keeps improving.
One element that keeps improving the results is that we now have an agreement with AgriSita, which takes the responsibility to enrol lecturers to a level of PhD.
Now majority of our lecturers are using that space of having a funded programme by a Sita to become Doctors, most of them are now PhD doctors,” said Sambatha excitedly.
He undertook to address issues of student accommodation particularly in Potchefstroom where a single student is expected to pay up R4 000 in a bachelor flat for accommodation.
