Over 100 students from Heavy Duty Operators College in various provinces of the country are stranded after the college was shut down along with 9 other learning institutions by the Technical Education, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training Authority –TEVETA- for operating illegally.
The affected students from Muchinga, Northern, Copperbelt, Luapula and North-western provinces are funded under the Constituency Development Fund –CDF-bursary program from different constituencies and enrolled at the institution.
In an interview with Phoenix News, the students are demanding for the learning institution to refund them so that they can continue training elsewhere.
They say there were paying as much as k9, 700 to undertake a two weeks training program in heavy duty operations.
And when contacted for a comment, Heavy-Duty Operators’ College General Manager Gift Mwandila claims the institution was illegally closed by TEVETA.
Recently, TEVETA closed down 10 training institutions countrywide for operating illegally among them Pascal Operators Training Institute, Heavy Duty Operators, Pamcard Training Institute, Phoenix Research Institute, Lusaka Vocational and Technical College and Excavator Operators Training Centre.