The first semester of 2022 has already been a rocky one at the University of South Africa (Unisa) as registration dates and other important milestones have been moved around constantly, and it keeps happening.

Today both the final date for the minimum fee payment as well as assignment due dates have been affected.

“Kindly take note that the final payment date for the minimum fee of the first semester modules is 25 February 2022. You are kindly reminded to make payment into the university account using the correct details as provided by the university,” an announcement reads.

“Visit the payment page on the Unisa website: www.unisa.ac.za/paymentinfo. If you have made your payment but your registration has not yet been finalised, you may contact the university with your proof of payment at enquire[AT]unisa[DOT]ac[DOT]za.”

The date before this was 17th February which was also an extension.

While no real reason has been provided for this move, Unisa has provided an explanation for assignment due dates changing.

“Please note that myModules 2022 is currently unavailable and the problem is receiving priority attention. New due dates will be communicated for those modules with due dates set for 21 February 2022. We apologise for the inconvenience and impact on staff and students,” the university writes.

As we covered last week Unisa closed the ability to submit assignments through myModules, likely as part of the upgrades being made to myUnisa student portal to incorporate the Moodle software into it.

Regardless of the reasons behind these moves it continues a long streak of Unisa changing important due dates on the fly. It’s not uncommon for these dates to change three or four times before finally happening.

The good news here is that these date changes almost always give students and educators more time, not less, though we have to imaging the constant moving goalposts cause their own stresses.