The universities lock their doors

A bleak outlook for Zimbabwe's students as classes fail to start

All four of Zimbabwe's universities have failed to open for the first semester of the 2008/2009 academic year. And the country's students are left wondering if their education has come to a sudden and permanent stop.

The University of Zimbabwe (UZ), the National University of Science and Technology (NUST), Midlands State University (MSU) and Chinhoyi University of Technology (CUT) have all failed to open their doors, some six weeks after the scheduled resumption of studies.

The basic problem at all four establishments seems to be a familiar one for our country: the staff have withdrawn their labour because their salaries are unrealistically low.

I understand that lecturers have demanded a monthly salary of US$1500, which is the average paid for similar posts in South Africa. But it is clear that none of the institutions can afford this level of pay.

Students who attempted to attend in the normal way were met by brief notices announcing an indefinite suspension of all activity. One statement, by MSU Registrar G.T. Gurira, claimed that his university had officially opened on September 30, but closed immediately due to a withdrawal of labour by members of the teaching staff.

I contacted UZ Vice-Chancellor Professor Levy Nyagura, who told me that the decision to close was made by his university council, but he refused to comment on the reasons for that decision.

Zimbabwe National Students Union president Clever Bere said the closure of the universities was a sign of failed leadership in the country. "The end loser was always going to be the student," he said. "First we lost out on quality of teaching, now we are losing out on any teaching at all."

Final year economics student Primrose Siluma said: "I hoped I would graduate this year. Then I could find a job and help my parents. Now there is no chance, and I am devastated."

Comments

[Carlmadzi]

This is not surprising!Nothing works anymore in Zimbabwe.Zanu-PF destroyed all systems in the country a long time ago and I am really worried about the future of all Zimbabweans,especially children.All we know is that, Zanu-PF was defeated and should concede to MDC to bring the country back to normality like before.

[Don Cox]

"should concede to MDC to bring the country back to normality like before."

Do you think that is still possible?

[macon]

Concede? That's a pipe dream as long as the ZANU-PF officials can continue to steal the duties and exports... and as long as they're supported by the ignorant under-belly who steal everything else, haven't the intelligence to reason and differentiate between fiction and fact, and whose only answer to truth is a stout stick. Concede? It ain't happening.

In the meanwhile, they're turning Zimbabwe into a nation of beggars. I know of one man whose only remaining possession, beside the clothes on his family's back and their cooking utensils, is his plow... and he's trying to sell that to buy meal just so he and his family can survive one more day.

I realise education is a key to the future of Zim, but with such great and immediate needs for the basics of life, I'm much more concerned that people are starving... literally.

What the ZANU-PF people refuse to consider is that their final justice is but a single heartbeat away... and then they will reap the whirlwind of their evils, and scream in their torment.

[RMacleod]

Come on its so simple!. Destroy the last food producers in the country and now remove the education and what do you have! twelve million or more slaves.