Education is a vital aspect of human life. In our modern world that is marked by various technological advancements and innovations, it is even more imperative.
This is a fast-changing world and education gives people an opportunity to adapt to current trends and intellectual expectations. All in all, education is important for the overall development of any country, including our own.
The educational landscape of the country in recent years has been marred by activities that were it not for important causes, would be classified as chaos. From those dark days of the academic freedom fight to the continuous student allowances fight, to the current protests against fee hikes, the bottom line remains the same: university education is losing ground.
Last week, there was an embarrassing moment when students at Chancellor College in Zomba blocked the motorcade of the US Second Lady, Jill Biden, who was in the country for some projects. The motorcade had to cut its trip to Machinga and America’s Second Lady sought refuge at the nearest police station.
For others, this was an international embarrassment to the country; no wonder, they called for a harsh reprimand of the students. On the other hand, some considered this a desperate cry for help from the students, a deep need to be heard at whatever cost. Whichever angle you look at it, this is bad for the country and it illustrates disorganisation at the grassroots level.
The actions of the students can be defined in different ways depending on what corner of the fence one is perched on. From my corner, I find the ongoing protests to be a painful indication of the perpetual lack of concrete progress in the country. It seems the only thing that remains constant in Malawi is the tendency to remain in hazardous and dormant comfort zones. The university education and fees saga has matured into such a comfort zone.
It seems a stand-off between the parties involved continues to fester to a point that people forget what they are even fighting for; in the case of police officers slapping female students who looked destitute following the chaos on campus; in the case of The Polytechnic students unleashing a wave of unrest along the Masauko-Chipembere Highway after completing their exams. Sometimes it begs the question as to whether rioters do so with intent to be heard or whether they are rebels without a cause.
The current situation is instilling a rebel mentality in future leaders instead of instilling a spirit of perseverance, hard work, dialogue and negotiation. We need to make progress on the matter by reaching a final consensus as to whether fees should remain high or subsidised
If they remain high, justifications should be made clear and involved parties and stakeholders should be duly informed and ‘sensitised’ to the given reasons for fee hike. There should also be an ample adjustment time to the increment. The people that pay fees should be given some time to save up or adjust their budgets to meet the new prices.
If they are subsidized, strategies should also be put in place to foster the process, policies should be drawn that will protect education funds (from taxes) against exploitation and individual universities need to incorporate income-generating programmes into their systems.
For instance, The Polytechnic offers wide-ranging programmes and can be used as an innovation hub for research, communication and public relations, engineering, education, architecture, environmental sciences and information technology in the country.
As a country, we, however, need to move away from the free-for-all mentality and also embrace the saving and investment culture. The average university student is 18 years old, this gives ample time for a parent to service a college fund for the child.
As much as we are continuously lamenting and protesting, one fact remains: we are not making progress. Instead, we are losing out on prime education years for students, we are derailing the values of the education process and we are cultivating a blame-game lazy mentality that perpetuates the tendency of pointing fingers instead of being proactive. Students are now taking six years to finish a four-year college degree because of protests, which is just sad.
This issue has come to a point where it matters less who is wrong or right but it is what should be done to make progress and see students in the lecture rooms and not on the streets behaving like a bunch of rabid hooligans. This saga has to come to an end and the status quo needs to be redefined so that this country can progress.
I rest my case.
Leave a Reply