Students are angry

In his famous song, Multipartisme (médiocratie), Ivorian reggae superstar Alpha Blondy sings:

Les professeurs sont fâchés

Leurs droits syndicaux bafoués

Les étudiants sont fâchés

Ils veulent plus de liberté

(Lecturers are angry

Their union rights violated

Students are angry

They want more liberty)

It is as if Alpha Blondy had Malawi in mind when composing this song. As I was writing this piece, the Chancellor College Students Union had organised a nationwide demonstration slated for this Thursday, 27 April.

My first thought was: so this is what education has come to?

Once upon a time, when a child passed their Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) examinations, everyone used to rejoice. The student, parents and the community would be excited with expectations of progress because this meant the child would soon go to college and after attaining the education, the child would be employed and start looking after everyone.

Being selected to the University of Malawi was the ultimate prize. This is where the crème de la crème from all parts of the country met to be shaped into even better minds. This was where young men and women were shaped into leaders of tomorrow. T h e University of Malawi was a stern sanctity of discipline and hard work.

Not anymore. Education has gone to the dogs , and those in power, those who control our resources, do not care. Their children, after all, are not affected.

When a child gets selected to the university these days, what follows is dread. Dread because there is no longer certainty and sanity in the University of Malawi. Dread because students will take eight years to study a four-year course.

And the anger seeps down to secondary school students too because they will wait two years for the backlog to clear before entering college, where it will take them eight years to finish and that means 10 years before they can start looking for jobs.

And why is Chancellor College in this mess? It turns out lecturers are on strike. The lecturers want a salary increment of 40 percent which is, apparently, aimed at aligning their perks to that of the other constituent colleges of the University of Malawi. What we do not hear are the efforts being taken by the concerned authorities to address this matter and ensure that the college does not take years to open.

Mr Chancellor of the university, will you please make your presence felt? At times like these, your leadership is most needed, Sir.

It seems to me that we are playing heads or tails with the future of our children. Rather, those in power are playing with the future of children, the way some people used to play that game of cards, kamwayi kamunthu, or now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t.

Malawi as a country is in shambles. Poverty dug its roots deep into the heart of the country long ago; we are now used to it. We have a poverty mentality of accepting whatever crap is shovelled down our throats. And now, it would seem, Chancellor College students have had it up to here.

As a nation, we can mess with anything but not education. Without it, what is an already bad situation will become truly terrible. Education is one of the key elements in alleviating poverty in the country and its collapse will be our undoing.

The current trend of perpetuating constant chaos and uncertainty in the University of Malawi has become an issue of patriotism. How much do we value the standards of education? How willing are we to sacrifice a little comfort for the future of the country? How determined are we to keep students in school?

All parties involved in the saga need to look ahead with a bit more positivity and determination lest we dilute the standards of education in the country for good.

I rest my case