Coalition faults govt on students accommodation

Civil Society Education Coalition (Csec) has faulted government for failing to address accommodation problems in some public university colleges where fourth year students live off-campus.

But Ministry of Education Principal Secretary for higher education Patrick Kabambe has justified the reasons colleges prefer allocating on-campus accommodation to first year students and not those in their final year of studies.

In an interview, Csec executive director Benedicto Kondowe said it is not practical to have a fourth year student reside off-campus, citing academic pressure as the deciding factor.

“Fourth year students have a lot of work to do; they have to work on projects. Now if they have to move around like this, what will become of their final exam output?” wondered Kondowe.

He blamed government for “being reluctant to address the long-standing problem of accommodation in colleges”.

“Government should take a leading role in partnering with Malawi Housing Corporation [MHC] to provide accommodation to all students,” he said.

However, Kabambe said there are some first year students who come from distant places or are used to living in closely-supervised environment, as such, they cannot manage “to juggle between off campus life and education”.

Said Kabambe: “I know it’s a challenge but government is working hard to ensure students are accommodated in houses close to college campuses. We have been talking to Public Private Partnership (PPP) and everything is now waiting for Cabinet approval.”

The Nation on Tuesday published a letter from a concerned student who bemoaned challenges fourth year students face when residing off-campus.