Mahikeng local economy is due to the North West University’s limited capacity to admit a number of students who submitted applications to further their studies at the campus. According to the information obtained from the university spokesperson Louis Jacobs, the total number of applications received for the 2023 academic year is close to 200 000 (Two hundred thousand).
Jacobs stated that the university is only able to register 11 665 fi¬rst year students as agreed with the Department of Higher Education and Training. When asked what the university needed to do in order to build more capacity to enable them to enrol more students, Jacobs stated that “at the moment there was nothing the university could do accommodating the number of students as prescribed by the DHET.”
The other project in the pipeline at the university is the envisaged erection of a Medical Faculty at NWU. Mahikeng residents, prospective students as well as the university populace are waiting with bated breath for the faculty to be constructed at the local campus given the fact that the campus has plenty of available land as compared to the Potchefstroom and Vanderbijlpark campuses.
Generally, the Medical Faculty has an academic hospital or clinic attached to it coming in handy for nursing and medical students to conduct their training and researches. Regarding the Medical Faculty, Jacobs stated that this was an ongoing process driven by a sub-committee of the NWU Council.
“As soon as the process involving all relevant role players from the government’s side are on board, further announcements will be made. The building of the Medical Faculty will increase the number of students, administrative, academic and general staff populace at the university which will also turn into an economic boost for local business communities in and around Mahikeng.
If the university was well equipped with the necessary facilities to enrol more students, this would be an economic spin-off for the town's local economic development. In recent years the university has engaged local and surrounding community members who are able to provide accommodation services to students from outside the city.
This has proven to be a cash boost for locals renting out their facilities to students on behalf of the university, local retailers, the transport industry as well as medical, recreational and religious establishments respectively.
Mahikeng Local Municipality Mayor, Cllr Tshepiso Mphehlo said "The Municipality had to first establish what priority needs the university had to acquire in order for it to have the capacity to be able to attract more students. Before that can be established, we need to engage the university and thereafter quantify with a feasibility study."
Currently, the average amount per student for residence in the academic year is R30 000. Doing the calculations, if the university was accommodating the current new students in their (University) residential facilities, the total amount that would have been generated would be to R 349 950 000.
It must also be taken into consideration that not all students prefer to stay in residence on campus but some prefer to pay rental out of campus. One student spends about R 3000,00 for accommodation and groceries monthly on average.
This does not include expenses such as clothing, transport, recreation and other expenditures while they are in the city for three to fi¬ve years of studying.
The big question is what if the university was incapacitated to enrol even half of the total number of applications received? What would that do to the local economic growth of Mahikeng?
