BIUST students lost confidence in school management
Botswana International University of Science and Technology ( BIUST) Student Representative Council President Mathiba Madigele says the student community has lost confidence in the university management.
This follows the arrest of some students and others being wounded after a protest at the institution in Palapye last week over student allowance. He said there has been some uncorroborated information circulating in the media. Madigele said the statement by the Botswana Police Service states that students were responsible for the fire that occurred.
“The blunt truth about the matter is that a flare shot from the police ignited the fire. A full video clip has been captured showing this. The SRC also wants to highlight that most of the information conveyed by the Vice Chancellor is false.
“The university property was destroyed by the BPS and Special Support Group ( SSG). No student was harmed nor any lecture ( sic) by the other students. No lecture ( sic) has reported an assault case by students.
“It is a disgrace that our guardian, Professor Otlogetswe Totolo, can give an order that allows police officers to brutally beat students without any hint of violence or misconduct. He has tarnished the image of the students of BIUST,” said the SRC President when addressing the media this week to give their account of what transpired.
Madigele said contrary to what the police shared on injured students, they have a total of six ( 6) who have been injured in the incident, explaining that the list includes two ( 2) females four ( 4) males, one ( 1) being an international and from the list five ( 5) are first year local students.
He said lessons at the university are halted at the moment as the current situation in the university is not conducive for students to continue with their studies after the horrific activities that transpired during their peaceful demonstration.
He said they have lost confidence in the management of their university and therefore will only resume classes when the situation is better. According to the student leader the root cause of all these activities is the generational incompetence, mistrust and mismanagement of the management. The management, he said has let them down in a lot of areas that affect the student body.
“No one from the management has bothered to check on the conditions of the affected students and the damage made on the property of the university. We live in dilapidated porta cabins which are barely repaired and are old.
“No budget plan has been made to build new hostels that can accommodate our growing population. We have around 1900 students and the school can accommodate only 838 students in the permanently built structures, meaning more than half are accommodated in porta cabins,” said Madigele.
He added that they have long been promised a fully functional Student Information System since 2016, but it has been four ( 4) years and still they are forced to register using Google forums that are always faulty.