Government Threatens to Close University

30 May 2011

Maputo — Mozambican Education Minister Zeferino Martins has given the Mussa Bin Bique University, based in the northern city of Nampula, 15 days to sort out a range of irregularities, or face closure.

Mussa Bin Bique is owned by the Islamic Training Centre. It is recognised by the Ministry of Education, but it has been opening delegations without the Ministry’s authorisation.

From its modest beginning in Nampula, it has opened what are claimed to be university faculties in Cabo Delgado, Niassa and Zambezia provinces, and in Maputo. There are even “poles” of the university in the Zambezia districts of Pebane and Mocuba, which lack basic facilities for an institution of higher education, and which were somehow set up without the knowledge of the senior university management itself.

When the independent television station STV visited the Cabo Delgado delegation of Mussa Bin Bique, in the city of Pemba, it found that the university library consisted of three small shelves. The bottom shelf contained religious books, while there were about 15 books relevant to the courses arranged on the top two shelves.

Martins met on Monday with officials of the Islamic Training Centre. He said the situation in the university was complex because of internecine disputes.

“There’s a conflict inside the Centre itself”, he said, “and this has been reflected in how the university operates. There are delegations that are not recognised by the owners of the centre, and university poles that are opened without the knowledge of the university management”.

Martins added that the Council of Vice-Chancellors had offered to mediate in the dispute, but without success. Now the government was giving Mussa Bin Bique an ultimatum – it had 15 days to sort out all its problems.

Martins hoped that this would lead to consensus between the university management and the owners of the Islamic Training Centre. An alternative possibility was to divorce the two bodies, which would lead to the creation of two universities – although Martins recognised that this was not a very agreeable solution.

But if neither of these solutions proved possible, he warned that the government “will be obliged to close the university”.

AllAfrica – All the Time