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Bulawayo students in massive demonstrations, as ZINASU rolls out nationwide demonstrations
Students Solidarity Trust
February 16, 2006

Students at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) staged a massive demonstration against the recent fee hikes announced by the government yesterday, Wednesday 15 February, while Bulawayo poly was left virtually deserted today after students had held a general meeting and petitioned the Minister of Higher education through their principle for a review of the same fee hikes. The new fees regime will see students support from the government effectively dwindling to negligible levels, making students pay exorbitant fees. The move, which will pass the burden of paying tuition from the state to the parents/guardians, is a tacit indication that the government has effectively privatized tertiary education in the country.

Last week the government announced a new fees structure for students at tertiary institutions. Students at state universities studying in the faculty of Arts and Social Sciences are now expected to pay $30 million per anum as tuition fees. Student’s support is $11.4 million. Students are expected to pay the difference of $18.6 million. Residence fees are $24 million per semester, of which $21.5million is for the meals. At the University of Zimbabwe, it has been categorically made clear that students should pay the fees by the 25th of February, money which amounts to $33million.

It is against this background, and a call made by ZINASU to resist the changes at the National University of Science and Technology staged a demonstration at campus, and the subject of today’s meeting at Bulawayo polytechnic. The main message that resonated throughout both campuses was that students couldn’t accept adjustment of the fees without proper adjustment of government support. The fees have been increased by a whopping 1500 percent. Students at the University resolved that there would be no lectures until such a time that the government rescinds on its decision to increase the fees. At least 47 students were arrested, while riot police beat up students wantonly at NUST. One student is reported to have been severely beaten and in a critical condition.

The Students Solidarity Trust is of the conviction that this new fees structure is a tacit and bold illustration by the Mugabe regime of its brazen disdain and negation of students’ welfare. It is a clear indication by the government that education in Zimbabwe is no longer a right, but a privilege. Tertiary education is now a preserve of the elite in our society. The fees structure is an indication of the skewed government policy, informed by naked neo-liberal inclinations. Be it as it may, this insensitive hike in fees comes at a time when the country is mired in a political and economic quagmire that has left Zimbabweans needing nothing short of a miracle to pull out of this morass.Runaway inflation, characterized by spiraling prices of basic commodities, acute unemployment and chronic foreign currency shortages have become cancerous cankers eating into the social fabric of our society. SST calls on the government to recant on the decision it has taken – as a matter of urgency. We urge the government to abandon this neo-liberal path it has embarked on and start-implementing people centered policies. Our poor peasant parents, reeling from the effects of a skewed economic regime, can hardly afford this new fees structure.

Should the government fail to withdraw from its disastrous path, we are persuaded to assert that this is systematic and deliberate abuse of the students and the generality of Zimbabweans. Yet this abuse is not merely an act of omission in itself, and does not occur by mere default. The abuse is a direct result of deliberate inhuman policies, which are all politically founded, in an unrestricted disregard for the disastrously negative and potentially irreversible repercussions on the welfare of the ordinary students.

Meanwhile the Zimbabwe National Students Union has made it categorically clear that should the government fail to reverse the new fees structure there shall be total unrest in all institutions of tertiary learning as resistance spreads nationwide.

Visit the Students Solidarity Trust fact sheet

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