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Uganda: Regularise Student Hostels
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New Vision (Kampala)
EDITORIAL
12 July 2008
Posted to the web 14 July 2008
Kampala
Uganda has been gaining ground as a leading education destination in the region. We receive students from Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Sudan, Kenya and Tanzania who come to study at Ugandan institutions of higher learning.
However, we are in danger of ruining the painstakingly built reputation for stable and trustworthy education systems. There is little attention paid to the quality of the facilities at many of the universities.
The Sunday Vision story on the life in some of the hostels around Makerere University Business School, Nakawa reveals the poor standards of services in most hostels.
Given the big numbers we have, hostel owners are only interested in raking in money with little concern for what the students get up to. Many hostels are proving to be havens of drug abuse, sexual orgies, perpetual parties and drunkenness.
There is so much noise that serious students can hardly concentrate on studying. The 24-hour satellite television trend does not help either. Security is either non-existent or just for decoration. Unisex hostels, if they must exist, should have certain standards to ensure the privacy of both male and female students.
The idea of male and female students sharing rooms, corridors or bathrooms is not good. In such a scenario, there is no immediate distinction between an intruder and a rightful resident, which presents the danger of rape and other violations. Security should be taken seriously.
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Let us not quickly forget how murderous gangs terrorised Makerere students a few years ago. While some universities appear to have a network of hostels affiliated to them, there is no effort to inspect or confirm the standards at these hostels on a regular basis. The hostel owners play the sleeping giant, and the education ministry and university
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| Copyright © 2008 New Vision. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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