STEVEN MVULA, Lusaka UNIVERSITY of Zambia (UNZA) vice-chancellor Luke Mumba has urged students to save the institution of higher education from collapse by paying tuition and other fees.

And Professor Mumba says defaulting students will be allowed to sit for examinations but results will be withheld until they pay all the money they are owing the institution. Prof Mumba phoned Radio Phoenix on Tuesday during a programme dubbed Let The People Talk and corrected the perception that UNZA wanted to bar 8,000 students from writing examinations due to non-payment of fees. UNZA is bankrupt and it will collapse if students dont pay their obligations. We are not wholly funded by Government. Even the exams have a cost. There can be no exam without funding. We need money for stationery, to pay external examiners and support staff. We feel the heat as managers of this institution, he said. He said it is not the responsibility of UNZA to provide for the vulnerable because its mandate is to provide education and research. UNZA has 27,000 students and 19,000 have no problem at all. It is only 8,000 who have not paid and management will allow 4,900 students to write examinations but will withhold their results. The rest of the 8,000 are not on our data base, Prof Mumba said. Prof Mumba said returning students in their final years who will not clear will not graduate while returning students will not register without results. The collapse of a nation does not require use of atomic bombs. It only requires lowering the quality of education and the quality of graduates. UNZA must, therefore, live on. UNZA must continue to be the beacon and catalyst for socio-economic development, growth and knowledge generation, he said in a statement on Monday. Prof Mumba said for the university to avoid the perennial problem of admitting students who cannot pay fees for various reasons, this years admissions for first years are all provisional.

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UNZA vice-chancellor lays down marker - Zambia Daily Mail