The knee-jack and sudden closure of the institution yesterday is reminiscent of what the same vice chancellor did in 2007 when he gave the students a three hour ultimatum to vacate the campus after a students’ protest leaving around five thousand students homeless and without food.
The situation of yesterday was sparked by the ongoing strike by the non-academic staff who downed tools on Monday after going for three months without salaries, a situation which has even forced the university to order students to pay full tuition this semester to raise the necessary funds. Due to the job action the resident students missed supper on Monday and the following morning there was no breakfast angering the students who had paid in full for accommodation and food at the campus. If this is not gross mismanagement and running down of the campus then nothing can be.
As the saying goes ‘a hungry man is an angry man and anger is one letter short of the word danger’ the hungry students organized themselves and decided to seek an explanation from the vice chancellor but by the time they reached his offices they discovered that he had already slipped out of campus through the back door in breath taking and spectacular fashion. All the students wanted was a logical explanation as to why they could not eat after paying for their meals for the whole semester. The college security could be seen watching in awe and utter amusement, urging more students to join in the protest, they could not suppress a genuine protest as they also have grievances against the college authorities who have not been consistent in paying them.
The college authorities, having earlier on ran away from the hungry students later resurfaced armed with an ultimatum advising all the resident students to vacate the college premises and effectively closing the institution up until the 24th of March. This added more misery to the hungry students who had to look for somewhere to sleep and bus fare to go back home. Most of the resident students are from out of Harare and do not have relatives in Harare. Thus the ultimatum has created a humanitarian crisis at the university as the affected students need food, accommodation and bus fares to go back home something they might not have budgeted for.
The SST yesterday assisted some of the students with bus fares but due to limited resources we could not deal with all the cases of students in need of transport. We therefore call upon all well wishers to join hands with us to deal with this man made crisis at the university.
Post published in: News