Senegal students forced to study remotely

Dakar – Making his way through Dakar’s bustling Colobane market, 23-year-old Serigne Fallou Gueye hopes to peddle the tracksuits tucked under his arm.

The second-year law student turned to street vending after his university was closed last June, explaining he would rather work than stay idle and ask his parents for money.

One of West Africa’s largest universities, Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar (UCAD), was shut by authorities after it became a hotbed of the deadly unrest that shook Senegal following the sentencing of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison.

In the flare-up of violence, young people pelted police in riot gear, set fire to buses and ransacked offices.

Authorities say the university was then closed on security grounds.

But many students point to political motivations in the run up to the 25 February presidential vote.

“Seven months without classes is catastrophic and scandalous. The state wants to sacrifice our future for strictly political reasons,” said Gueye.

Opposition figure Sonko has generated a passionate following among Senegal’s disaffected youth, striking a chord with his pan-Africanist rhetoric and tough stance on former colonial power France.

The firebrand, who came third in the 2019 presidential election, has been at the centre of a bitter standoff with the state over his eligibility to stand in the February poll, with UCAD playing a significant role in the turmoil.

Since its inauguration in 1959, the university has become known as a place of protest and was home to independence demands at the end of the colonial era.

“If we start again under the same conditions, won’t we have riots under the same conditions?” asked Senegal’s Higher Education Minister Moussa Balde,

while addressing the National Assembly in November.

Balde, who is also a UCAD mathematics professor, said authorities were working out how to ensure a “secure opening” of the campus and defended the idea of digital access cards to prevent potential intrusions.

For the time being, the university has restarted the online teaching that was in place during the Covid pandemic.

Claude Lishou, who heads the higher institute for distance learning at UCAD, said efforts had been made to make it more accessible for students.

He said telecoms operators had agreed to offer a free connection to students. –