I don’t like strikes. They are generally disruptive and mostly they resolve little and destroy much. However, the Limkokwing University of Creative Technology strike surrounding the school bookshop is interesting. The students at this institution decried the Mickey-mouse bookshop at their institution which was supposed to service their complex academic demands but had repeatedly failed dismally. As it is the case in these encounters, the police came with batons. The students sang and danced.
Chaos reigned supreme and the university was closed. The strike was declared illegal and the SRC as usual was suspended. But I am not interested in the politics of who was wrong or who was right. I am also not interested in the question of whether the institution should have been closed or not. What interests me is the matter of bookshops in tertiary institutions and the fact that students could boycott classes over a bookshop. Students should be commended that they had concerns over a bookshop. After all, one of the principal concerns regarding the current crop of our undergraduates, across various tertiary institutions, is that they do not read enough. Many of them spend inordinate amounts of time on Facebook, twitter and a plethora of other social media socializing. The online individual has become more significant than the person in the same room. The reading culture has diminished and the socializing culture has taken over. To see students strike over a bookshop and the money allocation for books is most intriguing during this period where there is a decline in the reading culture amongst our young.
We must reassert the benefits of reading lest some may mistake for a waste of time for those who have a test to pass. Ray Bradbury was probably right that “There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.” Reading illuminates the dark and hidden areas of knowledge and lays bare those areas of information which were previously hidden. There is sufficient research which has shown that those who read without fear academically have higher GPA’s, display a higher level of intelligence and general knowledge than those that don’t. For instance Anne E. Cunningham has found out that reading, in general, makes you smarter, and it keeps you sharp as you age. Reading also strengthens an analytical thinking. It exposes patterns and life’s motifs. Voracious readers have a larger vocabulary than readers of headlines. Reading therefore increases one’s vocabulary. Readers are also better writers and speakers. Their writing is better organized and ideas are sequenced appropriately. It is no wonder Stephen King claims that “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
Therefore when undergraduates cry for more affordable books we must listen for the development of a reading culture is an important investment in the life of our learners. BOTA and TEC must listen in particular listen because the government is investing millions in the education of Batswana locally and internationally. Locally, a tertiary robust book market is just beginning. For many years students were guaranteed books and had to collect them from a University of Botswana bookshop. Thus students who studied at the University of Botswana in the 80s and 90s will remember that the bookshop was generally a minor irritation now and then and rarely students had to strike over the unavailability of books. Students didn’t have to pay for books; they merely signed for them and got whatever book was on their academic printout. This established a solid reading culture at the university. I remember that as a single major English student in the 90s I read about 20 novels and plays at third year alone. Currently most of the institutions are facing a books crisis. It is either the books are not in stock and the students go through an entire semester without books or the books are available but they are ridiculously priced. In some campuses like UB and Limkokwing there is a bookshop monopoly. The private bookshop on campus is able to increase the prices to ridiculous price levels making them almost impossible for students to afford and own. This as a consequence kills the culture of reading. Instead students depend on their lecture notes, handouts, and online material. This certainly doesn’t work well for the learners since many barely make it in their studies and graduate with a very superficial experience of tertiary education: something which poisons the education system. If we are serious about developing a robust national tertiary education, we should pay supreme focus to the availability of books. We should not only talk of book sponsorship, we should enquire if such sponsorship is sufficient, and most importantly, whether such sponsorship is used for its intended purpose. I raise the matter of appropriate use of the book sponsorship since at the University of Botswana students have spent their book sponsorship on matters such as bags, religious literature, novels and other paraphernalia which has no academic relevance sold by the campus bookshop.
The problems faced by Limkokwing students are not unique to them. The University of Botswana is also facing a similar challenge and one hopes that the University of Botswana challenges would find a much more dignified resolution. I must also observe that perhaps the book crisis is not only at tertiary level. The recent reports of inavailability of books at secondary school are worrying.
Now imagine the worst case scenario of students who went through their secondary school with minimum reading coming to university where there is a books crisis. Our human resources would be in shambles. This is why it is important to look at the matter of books critically. Yes the students may have not followed the right channels to express their grievances but that does not invalidate their central issue of concern. All institutional bookshops must ensure that they have sufficient books to cater for the academic needs of their students. If they fail to do so, we should not be surprised when our entire educational system collapses.
