LUPANE State University (LSU) has reportedly gone for a
month without internet access due to failure to pay their Internet Service
Provider.
Staffers at the institution said the internet blackout at
the Bulawayo campus started at the beginning of January as the institution owed
TelOne an undisclosed amount of money in debt.
“The month-long absence of internet access has left the LSU
lecturers struggling to prepare for lectures adequately because their lecture
preparation requires internet access for research,” said a source.
They said without internet access, students were having
difficulties accessing their e-learning platforms as their other source of
internet access is overloaded due to high volumes of traffic.
The staffers at the university said it was difficult to
implement Education 5.O, a policy that focuses on community outreach,
innovation and industrialisation when there is no internet access to conduct
the necessary research to achieve this.
They said LSU had done nothing to resolve the lack of
internet access and there has allegedly been no communication between the
institution’s administration and its lecturers as to when the problem will be
resolved.
Contacted for comment yesterday, LSU director of marketing
and communication, Mr Zwelithini Dlamini, denied the allegations that the
university’s Bulawayo campus has been without internet access for a month.
“We only did not have internet access for two to three
weeks. We have engaged the service provider, TelOne, and we have resolved the
issue for a reasonable amount which I cannot disclose,” he said.
Mr Dlamini said the reason for the university’s failure to
pay TelOne was because students were away on holiday and the institution relies
on tuition fees for its revenue. Chronicle
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