University of Zimbabwe halls of residence and kitchens have remained closed to students seven months after the countrys largest institution of high learning reopened, leaving students stranded for accommodation and food.Unhappy with the situation, the authorities are working on a solution that should see a revival of the halls of residence and the kitchen. The Government has given the institution $500 000 to carry out renovations to return the institution to some form of academic normalcy.
The UZ vice chancellor, Levy Nyagura, said in an interview they had received US$200 000 from government to refurbish the kitchens in January and renovations were expected to begin this month. They had earlier received $300 000 to renovate one hall of residence.
The state procurement board is doing the adjudication of the tender and the refurbishments will start in April and may continue up to July because the kitchens need new equipment and their completion depends on the capacity of the local industry to supply the required materials, said Nyagura.
He added that UZ was concerned about the situation as students from outside Harare were finding it difficult to find accommodation near the campus, which adversely affected their studies as time was spent on find their way to school and back home.
Despite the setbacks, Nyagura is optimistic that in the next five years the countrys institution of higher learning would be one of the top five universities in Africa, funds permitting. With a graduation ceremony in the bag for one of the most difficult academic years, Nyagura feels the smooth days are around the corner. More than 2000 students graduated from the UZ in March.
Problems that include water shortages, prolonged strikes by lecturers, closure of the university and mismanagement of funds by the UZ administration led to deterioration of standards at the university in the past decade. Things got worse last year when the college was not able to enrol new students as it was closed for a whole semester.
UZ is going to grow depending on its capacity to generate enough funds, through commercialization of promising research results that are being carried out in different faculties. We will be one of the top five universities across Africa and we will be an information technology driven institution in the next five years, said Nyagura.
He added that things were taking shape at the college with the lecturers’ return, as well as students attending classes.
We have almost 2 500 students on the cadetship programme which is an improvement from last year and we are expecting between 4 000 to 5 000 students. The students who have applied have secured the funding and are already learning, said Nyagura.
Last year students were attending classes without paying school fees and others were dropping out. The situation has improved this year due to the cadetship programme introduced by government to help students without funds.
A final year law student Obey Shava said everything had deteriorated at UZ since he started his programme four years ago. When he was in his first year he had accommodation together with other second and third year students that time, he said.
When we started students had accommodation in the halls of residence and we could receive food from the university, but things have changed now students are squatting in wooden cabins especially from Groombridge Road in Mt Pleasant, said Shava.
The situation affected education standards with the students being unable to learn effectively as they often went hungry and were unable to provide for their daily necessities.
He also said the quality of lecturers was questionable as many qualified lecturers left the country for greener pastures.
A lecturer from the universitys faculty of agriculture said centralisation was the main contributor to the deteriorating standards at the institution.
University of Zimbabwe is still suffering. At the faculty of agriculture we have more than 400 students but we have only 10 computers, he said.
Most lecturers were now working as they had been offered a monthly salary of US$560.
Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe National Association of Students (Zinasu) president Clever Bere said that things were not normal and fees were unaffordable. For example UZ was demanding US$600 per student per semester for accommodation.
Bere added that the shortage of learning and teaching materials was still rampant in the countrys universities which include Masvingo State University, Midlands State University and Bindura State University.
The quality of lecturers at the countrys major universities is a cause for concern as the universities are filled with lecturers who have first degree practice as other lecturers left for other professions, said Bere. Nyagura defended this, saying it was common practice to employ lecturers who have first degrees on a part time basis as assistant lecturers. Their job is to assist the senior lecturers and they are not given full responsibility as has been alleged. – This story was compiled with the assistance of the Humanitarian Information Facilitation Centre. For further information please contact HIFC at 250638/251749/707959.
Post published in: News