Bunda students rise against maladministration, tent lectures
Armed with sticks and stones, irate Bunda College students are threatening to destroy property, in particular the principal’s house, if he is not removed for maladministration.
Principal Moses Kwapata is being accused of giving a deaf ear to their demands to have their diplomas and degrees bear University of Malawi logo as per the bill passed by the National Assembly when it merged Bunda and the Natural Resources College (NRC).
“Things are getting out of hand,” students’ union president, Hastings Mshane, told Nyasa Times. “The situation in the campus is a time bomb.”
Protests
The students, who have blocked the entrance to Kwapata’s office and threatened a strike a few days ago, also bemoan use of a marquee/tent as a classroom and other social academic welfare challenges.
Months ago, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) officials visited the college and said the marquee was just temporary, assuring that government was doing everything possible to improve the situation.
The visit was a response to media reports that students were learning in a ‘displaced peoples’ like environment’ in tents.
Last March about 700 first year students started to keep up with lectures delivered through a PA system in the tents, creating a refugee like scenario following late president Bingu wa Mutharika’s political decision to increase intake into Unima after the infamous quota system introduction into tertiary level education.
Kwapata challenged the media to see for themselves the marquee similar to the one used at Capital Hotel to host high profile people.
“All what you are hearing is not correct,” he dismissed the reports.
Meanwhile, management at the college is said to be locked in a meeting aimed at resolving the crisis.
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