The Kenya National Students Working Committee together with Kenya Tuitakayo have decried the current treatment university students and the youths are being subjected to countrywide. Addressing the press at Ufungamano House in Nairobi, the chairman of the National Students Working Committee Maxwell Magawi, who was accompanied by university representatives from campuses countrywide, faulted the current system which has led to existing loopholes. The chair called for the revocation of all suspension and expulsions of university student leaders and access to quality healthcare in universities, “In so many instances, particularly at UON, students have succumbed to injuries that could’ve been easily avoided,” he said, “With proper medical attention we’ll still be having our comrades around.”
He criticized the suppression of female students from participation in campus leaderships sexual harassment and exploitation in academic pursuits and welfare as one underlying problem. He further demanded the access to dignified affordable accommodation and students welfare in higher learning institutions, saying it’s becoming harder to get essential services. “Even simple logistics application like asking for a pen or projector can take 3 months but if a student delays to pay fees for like 3 or 2 weeks his portal is closed,” he said, adding that VCs at higher learning institutions must be subjected to serious criminal and forensic audit.
He also decried the commercialization of education at higher learning institutions and the p[roduction of half-baked graduates through shortened semesters and lecturer strikes. Following the release of a report that 24 people have been killed in Dandora, Mathare, Kayole and Majengo in the past three weeks, the youth leaders demanded an end to extrajudicial killings which mostly target poor, unemployed and the youths. “The field of Kenya’s liberation struggle is strewn with bodies of student activists who have fallen at the hands of police brutality and lost their lives,” said Magawi. The two factions have joined hands and have called for active action to tackle the challenges facing the youths, particularly university students in the country.
