UGANDA: Students strike over poor conditions

Hundreds of Nkumba University students went on hunger strike last week after the university senate failed to meet their demands. The university is one of 21 private and five public universities in Uganda but many are facing student protests over poor housing and inadequate facilities on campus.

Earlier this year, the students at Nkumba signed a memorandum of understanding with the university senate in which it agreed to provide good sanitation, decent meals, a well-equipped library and improvements to the general academic environment.

Instead, the senate failed to address the students' needs as agreed. One of the students, only identified as Baptist, was found lamenting, cursing and pouring scorn: "We eat posho and beans with weevils from Monday to Sunday yet we pay a lot of money, these guys should tell us where they take our money."

When I met the president of the Student Guild, he complained the university administration had long failed to comply with the students' demands. He said students had always been kept in an environment where bed bugs, fleas, lice, jiggers and rodents were their regular companions.

This unhygienic environment had caused bubonic plague and other health hazards to many students. The president complained students were poorly fed and lecturers missed their lectures, instead referring students to the university library - which was poorly equipped to meet the students' academic demands.

The situation was quite intense and students were hostile and vowed to carry out a deadly strike if the senate failed to come up with appropriate measures.

Anti-riot police were heavily deployed, armed to the teeth to forbid further offensive action such as strikes and riots. By the time I reached the scene, there was no serious damage caused by the strikers but I found it futile to try to speak with one of the university administrators.

This strike came after several serious strikes had happened at Makerere and Kyambogo universities respectively. Makerere is the Top University in Uganda and Kyambogo follows and they are both public universities.

Makerere university chancellor professor Luboobi proposed to close the university for one year because the government failed to fund the university as required. He said that this will enable the senate and the government to review the causes of mismanagement at the university and to come up with new policies to govern the institution.

The issue was tabled in the parliament of the Republic of Uganda; however the parliament did not accept the idea of the university chancellor to close the university for one year.
Corruption and poor funding from the government has put a bad image to this once prestigious university which was popularly known as the Harvard of Africa.

Its performance is rapidly slowing down according to the recent world university rankings. The government and the university top administrators are toiling and moiling to revive the previous university glories and honour.

* Kayiira Kizito is Uganda correspondent for University World News

Comment:
Why do university students in Uganda and East Africa at large resort to strikes as a means of resolving their problems with the administration. What happened to peaceful conflict resolution tactics such as open dialogue and agreement on the way forward. Is Violence really necessary????