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President speaks to the union
Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) (Mugwadi)
March 25, 2010

'When I enrolled at the University of Zimbabwe, I thought I had been incorporated into the academic paradise where I would learn in an enabling and friendly environment, but little did I know that I had , willingly chosen to become part of hell' said Liana Mandere, a 1st year female student from the department of Veterinary Science.

While in my previous edition I emphasized on the multifaceted crisis that we have faced in our various colleges and universities, this week I will focus on the particular details of what may seem to be small items for an ordinary man while they have a strong negative impact on the students and their studies. This is based on my findings after having toured institutions of higher learning in Harare and the midlands provinces i.e. Midlands State University, Gweru Polytechnic, Mkoba Teachers College and Kwekwe Polytechnic.

Cdes, at a time the generality of our politicians have turned a deaf ear to our plight, the situation at our institutions continue to deteriorate to regrettable levels, with politicians refusing to take necessary steps to stop the brutality and authoritarian behavior of vice chancellors who have been nicknamed vice criminals. My visit to the Midlands was punctuated by arrests after arrests, threats after threats with harassments from police and university security officers whose only basis was that 'ZINASU is synonymous with demonstrations and protests.' Given the challenges that the students at the MSU are facing there was really the need for such action, to revive the same spirit that had led the students to barricade the streets of Senga and Nehosho suburbs against sexual harassment of female students by college authorities, high fees, unaffordable rentals. The following is what my mission unearthed;

Denial of students from accessing the library

When I toured faculties at the Midlands State University, I discovered serious acts of rights violations that have been swept under carpet by the Bhebe administration and his apologists. The majority of students who had not paid anything of the $550 demanded and those that had paid some installments where locked outside while others where writing in class tests. Security guards notoriously known as zvinyavada (scorpion) were manning the doors, checking receipts for entrance, while poor students were forbidden. It also emerged that university staff is paid incentives from the fees that students pay, a situation that has created hostility between lecturers and students failing to pay their fees. A lecturer who demanded anonymity said, 'we have been surviving from tuitions that students pay and those that are not paying are doing us a de-service and we will not hesitate to retaliate.' What boggles the mind my fellow comrades is that while this heinous approach is unfolding, the voice of national policy makers, the government across political divide has not been heard, much to the shock and chagrin of the majority of the students who had higher expectations of this dispensation.

There has not been any effort to stop the hot headed and ruthless Deputy Registrar: Academic Affairs Mr. Taguta from putting the future of the majority of our generation into oblivion by terrorizing and harassing needy students. Harare Polytechnic has had the serious of these kinds of violations as the security guards and members of the ZRP have manned the gates of entrance into the institution demanding students to produce receipts to enter in the school yard or go back home. It sounds unrealistic but the institution that produced some of our national leaders today has been relegated into a primary school, where the whims and caprices of the principal have substituted policies. It is in this regard that the National Executive Council ZINASU will not rest to take the campaign against misguided privatization of all services at institutions through the popular National Campaign Against Privatization of Education in Zimbabwe (NACAPEZ) as a yardstick to alert the nation that the suffering that we have had as the students for the past decade should come to an end. The month of April will be pregnant with such protests across the nation until the government takes the students seriously.
UZ 'Graduation'

As I complete this edition, all roads from GPA signatories leads to the dilapidated, deteriorated and troubled oldest university in Zimbabwe, the University of Zimbabwe where thousands of the intellectual community, the students have been sentenced to abject poverty and suffering for a crime yet to be known by the ruthless and anti-poor policies of Levy Nyagura. It is shocking to note that the majority of the students, around 89% of those who completed their studies are not going to be graduating tomorrow because they have been denied access to their results for failing to pay all their fees. Nyagura is at it again! The self acclaimed Chancellor of all state universities will shamelessly preside over a ceremony where the majority of deserving students will have been knocked out simply because they come from poor families, notwithstanding that the same personality is a beneficiary of the colonial education policy which he acquired despite coming from a peasant family of Zvimba. Shame on him!

Today in an independent Zimbabwe, education becomes a commodity that is auctioned, with the rich minority of the ruling classes assuming the highest bidder status. While others learnt freely under the colonial system and others soon after independence, students in 21st century Zimbabwe have been reduced into hunter gatherers in a forest that has virtually no prey because of the ill-conceived capitalist supremacist policies that have left the current generation in limbo. The old man and his new found cronies have committed serious documented scandals with the Chiadzwa diamonds instead of utilizing them to fund education. They have used the national resources to fund unyielding trips, unstratergic strategic retreats, purchasing top class vehicles and self enrichment while the students situation continue to deteriorate. If I were him, I could have avoided visiting the UZ in the name of attending the graduation; just to cap few individuals and turn a blind eye to the crisis of administration that manifests in Levy Nyagura!

On Monday the 22nd of March, the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Higher and Tertiary Education met with my leadership to raise and stimulate debate on what can be done to ease the crisis at our institutions and the Cadetship program. It is our collective hope that they will take our issues seriously and act sooner than later and shun the old style of meeting after meeting while nothing comes out. My leadership will continue to lobby government for the review and amendment to the program so that it reflects collective bargaining for mutual progress.

Let me conclude by wishing the few who graduated on Friday the 19th of March 2010, a successful future in the name of the Lord and hope that they will be blessed with jobs.

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