Last week on Friday students of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology (JOUST) went on the rampage due to students election and as am writing this they are at home for an indefinite vacation.
Student at Moi University had a demonstration as a result of students’ election on October 13 at 9am. Maseno University has been closed indefinitely and students were given 30 minutes to vacate the institution. The two incidences are as a result of students’ elections.
Last year in October, students’ elections at Maseno University were disrupted goons who felt that the other candidate stole elections and was going to win unfairly. They destroyed the ballot boxes and papers.
Students at the university have taken elections seriously to an extent that they can kill or injure whenever they feel their candidate has been unfairly treated.
I happened to have studied at Maseno University in the recent past and what I have witnessed during students elections is worrying. The elections that are made to be peaceful and a training ground for future political leaders have now turned out to be tribal, useless, demotivating and injurious not only to the students but to the whole community.
Students have so far refused to get guidance from the administration. Whenever the administrators come in, the students became suspicious that one of the aspirants is being favoured or the administrators have a plot to favour a particular ethnic tribe.
It has remained a blame game between the staff and the students. I remember two weeks ago when Maseno University administration made slight changes in the students’ constitution whereby the aspirants for any elective post must have an average of a B in academics.
The students were furious and opposed the move yet it was to ensure that students are led by brighter comrades who can reason and not just goons that we have been electing over the years.
A university is the highest institution of learning where student’s behaviour should match what they study. Yet at Maseno things are getting worse.
Students will spend a lot of money and time campaigning at the expense of reading and attending lectures and when they fail a simple test they start accusing the lecturers of being biased.
When parents admit their kids at the university such as Maseno, they have high expectations. They have a believe that sooner or later, their kid will graduate, find a good job and probably help them in future.
Instead of the good things, parents have been made to pay huge medical bills as a result of injuries sustained by their sons and daughters due to endless demonstrations and physical engagements with the police
Many time universities in Kenya have been blamed for churning half baked graduates in the job market.
It is high time students embrace discipline and work hard towards achieving a dream that their parents long for.