UNISA - year versus semester courses

Let's compare the costs of doing courses at UNISA that are semester versus those that are a year long...

Cost of year module (R710) plus overseas postage levy (R880) = R 1590

Cost of semester module (R710) plus overseas postage levy (R440) = R1140

That is a difference of 39.5%

Even if the courses value towards a degree is the same whether taken in 4 or 12 (*?) months – almost 40% is a huge difference in cost.

Unfortunately most of the courses I wish to take (art and religion) are year long courses.

This means…

1. 40$- more expensive
2. Studying more subjects at once in order to complete degree in the same amount of time (I prefer to study fewwer things indepth at a time, in fact I would rather study ONE subect at a time for a shorter period)
3. Lugging around twice as many books (I work on the road)

I am perplexed as to why UNISA continues with the year system considering these disadvantages.

P.S. I still haven't seen a single piece of paper from UNISA though I paid in January. I was told that despite there being no consulate of south africa in Ho Chi Ming City my certified copy of my passport from my Canadian consulate was not acceptable. SInce Vietnam is a communist country (in a few ways still anyway) there are no private notaries, so I had to wait in line a few hours at the government notary office to get a state issued copy. I dutifully mailed it (a scan was not acceptabvle UNISA assured me) by registered mail. Some weeks later they still hadn't recieved it. Presumably they take off for summer holidays because the next window of opportunity to register is two weeks before the autumn semester begins!

Soon it will be three months they have had my money and I haven't seen a single piece of paper to study.

BTW, I was going to take literary theory until I did some preliminary reading on the subject and realized that it is the most impractical sort of pseudo-intellectual mumbo jumbo I've ever seen. It has little to do with studying the lives of authors and their literature. Glad I found out sooner than later!