With nearly every sector fully open, except the boda bodas, Makerere University is yet to reinstate physical learning. And students are not pleased. A section of students are organizing a protest against the arrangement. According to the university’s Guild President Shamim Nambasa, the protest will happen on Monday next week after the freshers report.
As per the current arrangement, students are supposed to report and return home the receive their lessons via online platforms, like zoom. This requires every student to have a smartphone and a laptop.
Nambasa says online ways of learning are discriminatory. Many students who can’t afford laptops or smartphones and those with disabilities are left out.
“We pay full tuition and functional fees yet they want us to study from home and buy data. It is also affecting students with disabilities, so it is really hard for them to study when they are home where they don’t live with their guides,” says Nambasa
Engagements to review the system with management, she says, have been fruitless.
“We have engaged them and we have got statistics on students who have been vaccinated against Covid-19. About 71 percent of students have been vaccinated. We have written to them but they still insist on their stand.”
