UOG students boycott classes

Main Stories, National
Source:

The National, Thursday 18th April 2013

 

By ZACHERY PER

STUDENTS at the University of Goroka boycotted classes yesterday to protest against the adminis­tration’s reluctance to address issues regarding their welfare.

Police officers from Goroka-based Mobile 13 squad were called in to stop the students from burning a bus belonging to the university. 

Police fired teargas into the protesters, resulting in one female student suffocating from the smoke and rushed to the Goroka Base Hospital. She was treated and later released.

Police arrested eight male students but they were released after Henganofi MP Robert Atiayafa intervened.

Atiayafa, a member of the university council, assured the students that he would call for an urgent council meeting to discuss their grievances.

The students marched to the residence of Vice-Chancellor Dr Gairo Onagi in the morning demanding that he step down for failing to address the issues they had been raising.

Onagi was being closely guarded by university security officers yesterday. 

He could not be reached for a comment.

The students said they would continue boycotting classes until the issues were satisfactorily addressed.

The issues include the K5 fee charged for every academic transcript, the declining quality of food served at the mess  hall and the absence of a student representative council.

They claimed that book allowances (higher education component assistance scheme) for the first semester had not been paid although they were into the 10th week now.

Their other major concern is the government-sponsored Natschol K30 fortnightly allowances and extra charges on school fees.

The student council was abolished after the 2010 student boycott and replaced by the Student Voice Council. 

The students claim that it offers them no legal basis to raise their grievances at the university’s management level.

Council president Isidore Goveh appealed to the students to calm down and follow due processes in having their grievances addressed.

But the students refused to listen to him because they knew that the issues would never be addressed by the administration.