Category: Education

{The Rector of the University of Burundi has announced on 3 April that the signatories of the strike notice will be punished exemplarily due to the swindle and use of false documents. Burundi University students say University officials only want to persecute them instead of finding solutions to their claims.}

“About 7800 students signed the strike notice scheduled on 6 April. Those who were not available gave us their permission to put their cell phone numbers in the place of their signatures”, says one of the Burundi University students’ representatives. This was said when the Rector of University of Burundi, Gaspard Banyankimbona, accused them of swindle and use of false documents while signing the strike notice sent to Burundi President on 24 March.

“The Rector wants to persecute us. He said he would punish us exemplarily though he couldn’t indicate which offence we have committed”, says a student at Burundi University. He also accuses Burundi University administration of being complicit in the arrest of students by agents of the intelligence service. “Twelve of our representatives are detained in unknown dungeons”, he says.

Those students say that the strike will start on 6 April as planned if nothing is done. “Given the absence of consultations and talks between the students and University of Burundi management, nothing will change the deadline set for the strike”, he says.

Gaspard Banyankimbona, Rector of the Burundi University said the signatories of the strike notice will be punished according to the academic regulations and law. “Some of the signatories do not know the content of the strike notice and start to withdraw their signatures. They were manipulated”, said Banyankimbona.

For this University official, it is not easy to identify students who are on strike and those who are not because the University of Burundi is composed of three groups of students. He says the first group is made of students who do not receive the scholarship for academic reasons. The second group is composed of students living outside the campus but who receive the scholarship.

“Both groups say they are ready to receive any kind of funds including the scholarship loan”, says Banyankimbona.

The Rector of the University of Burundi also says the third group is composed of recalcitrant students living on the campus and fed by the university. He says this group is composed of the signatories of the strike notice who are easy to manipulate because it is a small group including all students’ representatives. “They defend their own interests”, says Banyankimbona.

Source:Iwacu

{Despite fears of a crackdown by the authorities on dissenting voices, students in Burundi are on strike over the government’s decision to abolish scholarships.}

Up until recently, the Great Lakes nation’s students had always benefited from bursaries, attributed without conditions. But as the country’s socio-economic crisis entered its 20th month, effectively squeezing budgets at a time of a very sharp increase in the number of students, the government last month changed the way in which scholarships are attributed.

In February, President Pierre Nkurunziza signed a decree that transforms the scholarship into a loan that each student undertakes to repay once his or her studies are completed and tightens conditions of granting.

In response to the changes, students from the country’s public universities announced on Friday (24 March) they were embarking on a power struggle to pressure the government into abrogating the new legislation.

Three thousand students from the Ecole normale supérieure du Burundi were the first ones to go on an unlimited strike on Friday morning, according to RFI.

More than 11,000 students from the Université du Burundi are now expected to join their compatriots in the struggle, after 170 student representatives gave Nkurunziza an ultimatum. In a letter, they have given the head of state until 4 April to repeal the decree, and have threatened the students will “suspend all participation in academic activities” would he refuse to do so, RFI reported.

The students’ announcement arrived like a bombshell, given the rampant fear in the country.

The president of the Université du Burundi is quoted as saying he was outraged at his students’ action, and warned their representatives about the “consequences” of their letter. The government no longer tolerates strikes and there are reports trade unionists have been imprisoned.

After a failed coup led by a disloyal faction within the army’s high command, the government intensified its bloody crackdown on dissidents and most of those arrested or disappeared are young men and women accused of participating in or supporting the opposition, or armed groups.

Between 18 and 25 March, NGO SOS Torture Burundi has reported at least six arbitrary arrests and cases of torture. This includes the “illegal detention” of a member of opposition MSD party, Félix Ndayizigiye from Gihanga, province Bubanza, who was released on 20 March after six days in prison.

As a result of ongoing tension, dozens of students have gone into hiding, but they have vowed to carry on their movement, with one quoted as saying: “We are ready to make the sacrifice, we will continue our struggle until we win”. According to the students’ representatives, the decree could “eliminate students from modest families from higher education”.

Burundi was taken from the world’s third-poorest country to the poorest after its economy shrank by 7.4% in 2015 and the GDP levelled at $315.20 dollars per inhabitant, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Source:International Business Times

{Makerere University has withheld 14,895 transcripts for students who graduated in February until the institution completes cleaning up its results management system after some staff infiltrated the system and falsified some of the students’ marks.}

Prof John Ssentamu Ddumba, the university vice chancellor, yesterday asked the former students and the public to give them three to four weeks to investigate the matter and remove those who were illegally listed in the 67th graduation booklet.

“There is nothing the university can do. But students can give us three to four weeks to sort out the problem and we will start issuing transcripts again. We hadn’t started giving them out yet and I can’t give them when we know there is a problem,” Prof Ddumba told Daily Monitor yesterday in an interview.

The university took the decision on March 9 after suspending four staff from the Academic Registrar’s department on suspicion that they participated in altering students’ marks without permission from their bosses.

The suspects include Mr Mike Bitamale Barongo, the head of ICT, Mr Dennis Mbabazi, Ms Joyce Namusoke, and Mr Christopher Ntwatwa, all administrative assistants in the Academic Registrar’s office, who have since been arrested. Only Mr Barongo was later released.

It is against this backdrop that the Academic Registrar, Mr Alfred Masikye Namoah, on March 20 wrote to the university staff, students and stakeholders indicating they had temporarily shut down the transcripts processing in order to clean up the mess.

“The Academic Registrar with the college registrars recalled and scrutinised the names of students on the 67th graduation list. During the verification, names of 58 students with altered marks were withdrawn. The university management discovered that there was alteration of marks,” Mr Namoah wrote almost a month after the February graduation ceremony.

“This is to inform our graduates and any other stakeholders that the transcripts processing system is temporarily shut down. The university will continue to give updates regarding this matter,” he added.

This is not the first time that Makerere withholds students’ transcripts after graduation. In 2015, a total of 13,776 students were affected as they waited for the university officials to verify their results.

Ms Christine Amori, an Industrial and Organisational Psychology graduate, is one of the affected former students who has failed to appear for interviews after graduation for lack of a transcript to prove that she completed her studies. She looked agitated yesterday at the news and for some hours, lingered in the Senate Building, which houses the transcripts office pondering on her next move.

“There is high competition out there for the jobs. I went to apply for a job at the Uganda Management Institute but I was asked to submit my academic documents. When I came to pick up the transcript, I was turned down. I don’t know what to do,” Ms Amori said.

Like his boss, Prof Barnabas Nawangwe, the deputy vice chancellor in charge of finance, said they regret the inconvenience they have caused their clients but appealed that the public gives the university an opportunity to clean up its system.

“It is true the university realised there is a mess in the results of the 67th graduands. They had to halt issuance of transcript so that they can clean up the whole process and issue transcripts without any doubt. It is unfortunate for our former students that we can’t serve them right now,” Prof Nawangwe said.

Mr Deus Kamunyu, a lecturer, supported the university management decision to suspend issuance of the transcripts in order to safeguard the institution’s data and image.

Prof Ddumba said the university has engaged its Senate IT team to clean up the system. However, some staff members are worried that because the team has been working with the suspects in the same department, they could be used to tamper with the evidence to use against those already in police custody.

In 2008, the Senate at its 133rd meeting noted with concern that the data they were storing on the Academic Records Information System (ARIS) was not secure and was not functioning as well as expected. It was also noted that some academic units had declined to use it and instead developed their own.

A committee was subsequently set up comprising Prof Sandy Stevens Tickodri-Togboa, the former vice chancellor in charge of Finance and former State minister for Higher Education, Dr Idris A Rai, Dr N Mulira and Dr L.K Atuhaire.

The team later recommended that the systems developed to handle examination results be equipped with alerts so that they can instantly notify the control centre of changes being made to marks indicating the location and user.

“That information would enable the Control Centre to verify whether proper authority to make changes was given,” the report on ARIS assessment notes.

But the university officials have never implemented some of the recommendations with reports of altered results without authority continuing to haunt the university almost 10 years after the safeguards were proposed.

Source:Daily Monitor