On a day (Thursday) when it looked like the strike by University of Botswana students was getting out of hand, the university’s own security is said to have raised a red flag. For days, students had been protesting delayed payment of their allowances and at this point there was every indication that the situation was getting out of hand. Striking students ransacked an on-campus supermarket (Shoppers) and campus security (which is unarmed) and not trained to deal with riots, could not do anything about the situation. From what Sunday Standard learns however, officers from UB’s Protection Services advised management that the situation could be arrested if a contingent of Special Support Group riot police who were stationed outside campus moved in. It remains unclear who tendered this advice and to whom it was tendered but at this point, no action was taken. The following day, the strike escalated to a point where the riot police had to move in and restore order. At this point, the rioters had wreaked havoc. A UB source says that if the riot police had moved in earlier, it would have been easy to contain the small group of rioters. A lecturer recounts an incident in which rioters (who overall were in the minority) invaded his class to force students who wanted to learn (overall the majority) to join the strike.
The other account is a denial of that assertion and is offered by UB’s spokesperson, Mhitshane Reetsang. According to her, when issues of this nature occurs, it is incumbent upon the Senate to advise the Council Chairman who has the final say.
Sources reveal that during the pre-crisis phase of the strike, the options that the Senate was considering were calling in the riot police, closing the university and negotiating with the students. Outside, the strike was outpacing the boardroom decision-making process and the rioters’ mood didn’t look like it would accommodate the third option. One UB manager says Senate members were worried about their personal safety, about “getting beat up by the students.” On Friday, when the rioting students ratcheted up their campaign, the Senate decided to refer the matter to the Council Chairman, Parks Tafa, who, as it happened, had to deal with the crisis from South Africa. Tafa would likely have consulted with the Minister of Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology, Dr. Alfred Madigele, who, likewise, would likely have consulted the president. Whatever happened, the final outcome was that riot police swopped in to quell the disturbance, classes were suspended until further notice and students were ordered to leave campus immediately. Further notice came last Wednesday when Madigele announced that classes will resume on March 6 ÔÇô exactly two weeks from today. While “closure” fits more snugly in the public’s understanding of the issue, the reality is that minus the learning process, UB is still going about its usual business.
Some UB insiders question the decision to suspend classes. From what these sources say, it was only a tiny fraction of students who went on the rampage. One in the former party estimates the number of rioters at 500 (in a student body of around 10 000) and points out that the majority should never have been “punished” for the wrongdoing of the minority. That could provide basis for “collective punishment” (indeed a term that the latter uses) which would be in contravention of international law.
Conversely, Reetsang contends that the only way to handle the situation was to order all students out of campus and take steps to re-establish control. By special, long-standing arrangement foreign students stayed out of the locals’ fracas, cooped up in their on-campus hostels, far from the madding crowd.
The student allowance issue has taken on the character of a bothersome Alibaba pop-up advertisement on your computer screen ÔÇô it just won’t go away and when it does, it is only to reincarnate itself. At least from an outsiders’ perspective, the issue seems a little too difficult to unravel and points to the fact that all parties concerned have not exercised their minds well enough on it to find a lasting solution. Everything being equal, the Department of Tertiary Education Funding pays out allowances upon ascertaining that a particular student has passed examinations. Such payment comes much later for students who have to write and pass supplementary exams. Some UB staff members feel that late payment of allowances is a representation of chickens coming home to roost for students. Sunday Standard learns that during the period of time when supplementary exams were suspended, they ceased to be a reason for late payment of allowances. With the active assistance of students, the Student Representative Council (SRC) fought long and hard to have supplementary exams reinstated. Vice Chancellor, Professor Thabo Fako, is said to have been opposed to the reinstatement of supplementary exams but the students push back very hard. Ultimately, they won but this was a Pyrrhic victory because DTEF has to wait for the publication of supplementary exams results to release allowances.
“You have to realise that the late payment of allowances is a direct result of students delaying the process by failing examinations. You also have to realise that some of these students fail because they don’t take adequate interest in their studies. These are students who are likelier to engage in strike action because of the late payment of allowances that has been caused by their own actions,” says a UB lecturer.
Part of the failure rate among UB is linked to a sub-category of student allowance ÔÇô book allowance. In prosecuting the case for supplementary exams, the SRC made a very credible argument about shortage of textbooks. Against a situation where it is extremely difficult and very costly for UB itself to procure such books, a decision was taken to give the students money to buy books from private bookshops. Tragically though, in the case of some students, the book allowance goes towards merrymaking so over the top it may remind some of a yesteryear Botswana when a large enough number of employees received a 13thcheque.
One lecturer says that this diversion of funds results in a high failure rate and in the stated group of culprits, concocting falsehoods about the allowance being inadequate and the quality of instruction by lecturers being sub-standard. For this group, increasing the allowance would mean more and longer hours of merrymaking.
It turns out though that even for students who are serious with their studies, the book allowance is not enough because textbooks are prohibitively expensive. This issue, which DTEF has not resolved, guarantees that there will be legitimate reasons for supplementary exams which delay the payment of allowances. On score of the fact that those who sit for such exams are not differentiated according to level of seriousness, they will be paid allowances the same way. To tie it all together, some students getting paid late will raise hell while others in the same boat will try to ignore the noise outside and focus on their studies. Riot police will move in and all students will be ordered out of campus.
As some culprits may soon learn when they appear at a Gaborone magistrate court, you don’t destroy property (public or private) to protest late payment of allowance and the consequences can be prison-dire. However, the issue is much more complex. In a country with the fifth highest rate of income inequality in the world, the beginning of the year is tough for most, especially students. Some of these students rely on allowance to travel between shared one-room rented accommodation and the UB campus as well to buy food and other bare essentials. There are also stories of students using their allowance to augment state support for their families back home – a newspaper has actually profiled a graduate made good who said as much. Some students will respond to February pennilessness by rolling with the punches while that same situation will trigger the worst human survival instincts in others.
