STUDENTS at the Management College of South Africa (MANCOSA) have been telling the Independent Media about their “nightmare” experiences with the higher education institution. And you don't have to look very far for the negative reviews – the internet is awash with them. Facebook, Twitter, and even more so on Hello Peter, where there are as many as 80 pages dedicated solely to MANCOSA.
The institution has been around since 1995 and has more than 10 000 enrolled students countrywide.
Many of the students who Weekend Argus spoke to said they were fearful about adding their names to their claims, for fear of being targeted by MANCOSA.
“I still have to deal with them next year,” said one student.
Most sang a similar tune: “Avoid MANCOSA at all costs.” More worryingly, many accused the institution of being “a scam, designed to keep students failing, so we can keep paying”.
Studying with MANCOSA isn't cheap. Non-refundable registration fees cost in the region of R4 000 and courses range anywhere from R20 970 to R32 990 per year. Fail a module, and you're looking at nearly R10 000 to redo it.
It's the long-running technical issues with MANCOSA's technology that’s come in for the most criticism. But the digital platform is the only way students can submit their work.
Joshua Jacobs, a third year human resources management student from Cape Town, explained: “You have to do your assignment in a word document, convert to PDF and then upload on their system. But hours before the cut-off, the upload button literally just disappears. And all you can do is just watch the time tick down.”
Jacobs failed one of his modules as a result and had to redo it at a cost of R9 000. The person footing the bill for his studies is his mother, Chantle Hoffman, who wasn't very flattering in her account of their experience with MANCOSA.
“Over the past two-and-a-half years MANCOSA has consistently failed to uphold their contractual agreement to render a service to students. Basics like transcripts of results are not sent,” she said. “My son had to repeat a module due to a computer system error. As a single parent it is extremely frustrating to deal with an institution who only seems interested in taking one's hard-earned money, but unwilling or incapable of delivering on their end of the deal.”
Hoffman said two of her nephews dropped out from MANCOSA last year “because of their terrible service”. She added: “Oh, I do owe MANCOSA outstanding fees. They might cite that as the reason for my complaints.”
Thaaqib Kasker, third year supply chain management student, said: “They have failed to provide me with marks for assignments and exams as well as my semester report. I kept trying to reach their student services for about 4-5 months, without any success. I resorted to getting my mom involved and she sent them an email which they responded to immediately, and I received it a few weeks later.”
Kasker continued: “I've had multiple instances where their online portal crashed during exams or when we had to upload assignments. And in these circumstances, MANCOSA's student services are unwilling to help in a timely manner.”
A student from Durban, who asked not to be named, said MANCOSA refused to accept his sick note when he missed two assessments in September.
“They said they regard my doctor's letter as work pressure, not a sick note, and they would only accept a death certificate,” said the student.
He said MANCOSA insisted he re-register for the missed modules and pay R10 000.
The reviews and comments on various social media platforms make for depressing reading. These were posted last week on MANCOSA's Facebook page, which has 83000 followers.
Brandon Kruger from Cape Town wrote: “I had such a bad experience today, completed the entire (assessment), hit the submit button, then I got a gateway error message. I then logged back in and my answer sheet was blank. I logged a call in (the) MANCOSA chat, (and) the customer service person's response was unfortunately you have to do it over.
“I then had to complete it in two hours after back and forth with delayed replies. After completing it again - boom, same error message, and my answer sheet was blank again. I feel more frustrated than anything else and there is no communication about this.”
Yaneesha Ramdeen from KZN said: “They implemented a new way of doing exams without informing us that it had changed. The system was not tested and has so many glitches. It freezes while writing and when you try and refresh the page you lose all of your work.”
The technical issues Ramdeen mentioned lead to the institution postponing year-end exams at short notice. They were meant to start last Monday but were moved to tomorrow.
Many students, who also have full-time jobs, complained about the disruption the postponement would cause to their schedules.
We put all of these issues to MANCOSA, who put forward some of their most senior officials to respond in a Zoom meeting including chief academic officer Zaheer Hamid, director for the Cape region Nuhraan Sambo and academic director for the school of Information and Digital Technology and Research, Paresh Soni, and Roxanne Bosch director of monitoring and evaluation: Student Services and Innovation.
Sambo admitted there were “technical challenges” brought on by load shedding.
“Prior to what occurred last week, the system was working fine. Extended power outages impacted the functionality of the technology, both behind the institution and the students' technology systems, we did experience intermittent technical issues.
“We had to make a very important decision taking into account that a probability that the problem might become worse as the online summative examinations continued. And we then made the very difficult decision to postpone the examinations,” she said.
But what about the disappearing upload button on the system? What about students’ work just vanishing before they're able to submit it?
“If a student had a challenge in terms of not being able to submit an assignment, it is probably due to the fact that the student had missed the assignment due date,” explained Sambo.
While Soni added: “There has been an escalation in queries related to the examinations. Students are obviously frustrated because of these technical issues.
“Perhaps lumping many issues together. But if we really had to unpack the submission button issue as an example, that particular issue was not raised at any point during the academic journey.”
Jacobs replied: “I'm not surprised this is the kind of response from MANCOSA. It is everyone else's fault. And everyone else is accountable except for them.”
Students had also said they were purposely failed at assessments and exams, just so they would be forced into having it remarked, at a cost.
“It's a scam,” said one student. “You do a remark of the same assignment and the marks are so different. As an example, when you submit and you get 10 out of 30. But then you do a remark and you get 16.”
Bosch responded that remarking was a regulatory requirement and students were offered a remedial opportunity on any assessment. “That second chance costs R250. Bosch added that the purpose is to actually learn something and be able to achieve the outcomes of the module.”