Birthday presents to Mugabe from Zimbabwe’s students: riots, demonstrations, protests and sit-ins

It was mugabe’s birthday yesterday, and students around the country are helping to make it a memorable one!

The Student Solidarity Trust has issued a statement today about ongoing student demonstrations in Zimbabwe:

RIOT POLICE THREATEN BULAWAYO POLY STUDENTS

Students at the Bulawayo Polytechnic, who engaged in massive demonstrations last week against the new exorbitant fees regime announced by the government this month, have been forced to go back to the lecturer rooms. The students had been on an indefinite class boycott since last week.

The College administration is citing a sinister law which students at the College have professed ignorance of - which states that the college has a right to indefinitely close the college if students boycott classes for 5 consecutive days.

There is a heavy presence of riot police at the campus, who are interfering in the normal operations of the College. The Chief CID Officer in Bulawayo threatened students to go back to school or face unspecified action if they fail to comply with the order.

Interestingly however, is the fact that the majority of the students have not paid school fees.

The students have vowed to resume the boycotts next week on Monday.

The Students Solidarity Trust unreservedly condemns the interference of state security agents in the operations of Colleges. It is a threat to academic freedom and autonomy of institutions and serves to show that our country is a police state.

Autonomy festers academic freedom. And the search for autonomy requires both an autonomous studying environment, free from interference by the police, and independent semantic tools that avoid both dictatorial values masquerading as universal truths and anthropological sentimentalism that glorifies mediocrity and institutions sliding into ruin.

Meanwhile, Masvingo Teachers College students are failing to attend school because of the astronomic fee increases. The majority of students are just failing to raise the amount required by the administration, clearly illustrating that education in Zimbabwe is now a preserve of the elite. The poor, who constitute the majority, will not be able to access education.

This follows a blog we posted yesterday, titled ‘Academic suicide’, which referred to the arrests of angry students at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST). More on that from an article titled Angry Students Mount ‘Jambanja’ Over Fees, which appeared in The Standard:

Unhappy with the fees, students threw stones at the administration block destroying window panes. Medical students at the University of Zimbabwe boycotted lessons in Harare, protesting against the new fee structure.

For the first time all students at state universities will be required to pay their own fees.

In a notice published two weeks ago, the UZ urged all students to pay the new fees “promptly”.

Yesterday SWRadio Africa reported on student arrests in Masvingo:

The ongoing countrywide demonstrations by students spread to Masvingo Polytechnic on Tuesday, as police briefly arrested 15 students before releasing them later in the day. The Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) is leading the protests and has warned of more demonstrations to come if the government does not reverse a tenfold hike in tuition and boarding fees. Mfundo Mlilo the spokesman of the Committee coordinating the strikes told Newsreel they spent the day addressing students in different lecture rooms at the Polytechnic.

And students at Hillside Teachers College in Bulawayo are staging a sit-in:

As the crisis in the education sector continues to unravel, students at Hillside Teachers College here in Bulawayo have for the past two days been staging a sit-in in protest to the recent shocking tuition fee increments by ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education.

Happy Birthday Mr Mugabe!

Technorati Tags: Zimbabwe, Mugabe, riots, demonstrations, action, poverty, education, teachers, students

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