By Lance Guma
02 June 2010
Tensions between students and college authorities countrywide are running high over exorbitant tuition and exam fees, which students say they cannot afford to pay. With those too poor to cough up being blocked from writing exams, clashes are being reported at different colleges and universities.
Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) spokesman Grant Tabvurei told us students at the Masvingo Polytechnic last Friday beat up Principal Nyamukapa and his security personnel after the college failed to explain why it was charging US$190 in fees when all the other institutions were charging US$170. Angry students said he refused to explain the extra US$20 and this led to the scuffles. ZINASU Treasurer Zivanai Muzorodzi and student Arnold Batirani were arrested by police.
This week on Tuesday there were more protests at the Mutare Polytechnic and Marymount Teachers College in the city. Again students said they could not afford the exorbitant fees being charged and accused authorities of not listening to their pleas for a flexible payment plan that would allow them to write exams while giving them more time to pay the fees. ZINASU Vice President Tafadzwa Kutya and Education and Research Secretary Bestnos Kundishora were arrested and only released the following day, in the morning.
Tabvurei told us the problem was so serious that at an institution like the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Bulawayo some programmes that had 50 students are seeing only 2 or 3 students sitting exams. He said most parents who had students in college were civil servants who are earning ‘paltry salaries’, and cotton or tobacco farmers in the rural areas who are being paid a pittance for their produce.
Tabvurei was scathing of the new coalition government saying ‘it was pursuing neo-liberal policies which are skinning poor people alive.’ A cadetship scheme meant to help disadvantaged students is said to have only helped about 7 percent of those who applied. The scheme is meant to cover all the costs but Tabvurei told us students have to top up between US$75 and US$175, depending on the fees required.
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