Poly students take to the streets over allowances

Students at the Malawi Polytechnic, a constituent college of the University of Malawi in Blantyre closed part of Masauko Chipembere Highway at Ginnery Corner causing traffic chaos.

The strike comes barely three days after the school opened on Monday August 10 2015.

Rogers Nyirongo, secretary general for Polytechnic Students Union (PSU) said the demonstration was a reaction to government’s failure to provide them with fees loan and allowances.

“No one wanted to demonstrate but the students are angry with the response that the administration has given us,” he said.

Nyirongo said they had approached the college’s administration but were told to wait to be addressed later during the day.

He said the meeting with the administration was not a success. They were given two options; to deduct their allowances and pay for their fees and be registered or to go home and wait for government to provide the student loans.

Although the place was covered with teargas, ring leaders of the demonstrations remained vigilant while throwing stones at the police.

In the early hours of today PSU leaders together with some of the students gathered at the open theatre of the school to discuss the delayed allowances and possible solutions.

One of the students said, the meeting had agreed to give them time to respond to their needs and failure to do so they would take to the Chipembere Highway to get more attention.

Talking about the options the school administration gave them, some of the students said they cannot manage to pay fees on their own and cannot survive at the campus without the allowances.

“Not all of us come from well doing families. If we survive here it’s because of that student allowance that we get. Now they are they are telling us that to be registered they will deduct our allowance, how do they want us to live? We need to pay rent where we stay because not everyone stays on campus, we also need to buy our every day meals but we have no money we depend on the allowance.”

Attempt to speak to the registrar of the school did not yield anything as the phones went unaswered.