By Zweli Martin Dlamini

MBABANE:Phila Buthelezi,the Minister of Labour and Social Security has announced that, Government will no longer offer scholarships to Bachelor of Arts in Humanities University students as the education crisis worsens in this tiny Kingdom.

This comes a few days after this Swaziland News exclusively reported that,King Mswati and his delegation will allegedly spent over R200million public funds, the King travelled with his new wife Inkhosikati LaZuma to Italy for the World Food Forum,he will proceed to Serbia for a State visit before attending the 2024 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Samoa. 

“Government will no longer fund University students for the Bachelor of Arts in Humanities”, said the Labour and Social Security Minister during a press conference held in Mbabane on Tuesday.

Eswatini is facing a worsening education crisis,schools are facing shortage of teachers, no sufficient budget for the operations of the Universities while highly qualified teachers are employed on contracts and paid a mere five thousand Rands(R5000.00), an amount equivalent to $290.00.

But apart from that,University students are committing suicide amid financial challenges as a result of the King’s Government failure to release allowances.

As the socio-economic crisis worsens in eSwatini, some professionals opted to migrate to other countries in search for jobs and/or as economic refugees.

But the crisis started to erupt after the Government ignored a social obligation to fund University students saying scholarships monies sourced from public funds, will “now be offered as loans”.

Employed professionals who never signed any loan agreement with the State, had their money unlawfully deducted from their salaries thus forcing them deeper into poverty.

Despite the efforts to establish a Scholarship Fund, the public funds deducted from employed professionals allegedly disappeared and/or looted and as a result, Government “is now struggling again to fund University students”.

Efforts to seek a comment from Gabie Ndukuya, the President of the Swaziland National Union of Students(SNUS), proved unsuccessful at the time of compiling this report.

But the latest decision to stop funding Bachelor of Arts in Humanities means, parents and students will face more financial struggles apart from the already existing health crisis,where citizens are forced to buy their own medication amid shortage of drugs in public hospitals.