By Chisomo Phiri
The Concerned Students Movement (CSM), a movement that fights for students’ good conditions and welfare at the Malawi University of Business and Applied Science ( MUBAS) formerly the Polytechnic has challenged the school management that it will hold kodokodo demonstrations to force the school management improve the living conditions which it says are in a bad state.
Speaking with this publication, the leader of the movement Peters Monjeza said there are a lot of challenges that the students most especially the needy are facing at the institution which need a quick solution so as to make education quality for all.
Among other challenges, Monjeza said the management is failing to handle accommodation issues as it has introduced a new system of selecting students to be accommodated on the campus where only a certain group of students are selected all the time leaving others suffering.
” The management has introduced a new system authenticaticates fairness when selecting students on campus hostels but what we see is not the said fairness. The out numbered students who were given the accommodation last semester are the same who have been also given the accommodation this semester to begin in January next year yet we have many students who have never enjoyed the accommodation since selected at the school. Others are in third year and others are finishing but they have never stayed at the no campus, is that fairness?”, Said Monjeza.
Monjeza also blamed the government to stop providing free meals ( meal cut) to the students in public universities and colleges saying this is now contributing to poor quality of education in the country and that the government should in hurry revise the decision before things get much worse.
” The government should revise the decision of not providing free meals to the students. The students are suffering a lot. How can you expect good performance from such students without food. I am criticising anyone who took his hand to remove the programme”, He said.
He said if the management is not addressing the challenges, the movement is well prepared to hold the demostrations at the campus in January next year .
” There is nothing wrong with that since it is our right to hold the demostrations as long as we follow the procedures. There are a lot of irregularities done by our management and I can say we will protest against their actions. We are tired with injustice happening at our institution especially the way the management is granting accommodation” said Monjeza.
Malawi University of Business and Applied Science has over 7000 students of which only 850 are those who have been offered accommodation in the next semester to begin in January, 2022.
