Begins another academic year of struggling and suffering for its thousands of students. Freshmen and continuing students are again faced with the acute problem of transporting themselves everyday to and from campus for lectures. In a city where the most basic transport needs are not provided for by the state, the plight of FBC students is particularly dire. The degradation and inconvenience they go through is immeasurable as they stand in endless queues at Model Junction and the Hill Side Bypass Road literally fighting to get transport to convey them way to college. The queues sometimes snake their tail to as far as the eyes can see. Waiting for rickety taxis which, un-roadworthy as they may be are insufficient and being yearned for. A drowning man, they, will cling even unto a serpent. This is made worse by the fact that there is a gridlock of vehicular traffic with no authorities to clear up.
Enter the risky but necessary commercial motorbike taxis - OKADA - whose riders take advantage of the agony of the students by charging exorbitant fares to ply the steep hill of about three kilometres. All this because the FBC administration for three years now have prevented students from using the hostels. They were initially closed because of student unrest. That excuse has now given way to the pretext of rehabilitation even though no work is ongoing, nor any sign of it to start anytime soon. True the hostels are uninhabitable. However what is excruciatingly painful is that since the eviction of students from the hostels, nothing has been done by the administration with regards renovating them for students who badly need accommodation to ease the unnecessary pressure and strain they face every day to transport themselves to and from campus.
The past students' union administration worked hard to ensure that students regained access to their hostel to ease their difficulties which are having a huge toll on even their academic performance especially those who from less-privileged homes. However, at the end of such a dreading campaign, 31 students were rusticated for what the administration termed as illegal stay on campus, even though nothing with regards the renovation of the hostel was going on and regardless of the fact that most of them came from the provinces and had no where to stay at the time.
I think the college administration should deal with this issue with particular seriousness because of the challenges students, especially those from the provinces, face. As well as students from the far east or far west of Freetown, whose bull's eye is to reside on campus to avoid the daily hustle and hassle of transporting themselves to college.
Let’s take for instance the issue of Mustapha Sinneh, a freshman at the college, who comes is coming to Freetown only for the second time and who has no relative here. He has to plead to cohabit with a friend who stays near by the college, so that he can make it to attend the tertiary institution of his dream. The renovation and subsequent habitation of the hostels would definitely minimise a great deal the travails of Mustapha and many other students in a similar position. I think the college administration is equivocally saying that Fourah Bay College is no longer a place for provincial students.
As a way of temporarily mitigating the effects of the lack of hostels, why can't the administration try to get some buses to be transporting students from model for a subsidised cost? This does not suffice to solve the problem but I think apart from easing the difficulties of students, it could demonstrate the administration’s commitment to providing a suitable learning atmosphere for its students.
Fourah Bay College is the institution most people in the country would like to get their tertiary education from in preference to other tertiary institutions. So I think if the hopes and aspirations of their dream college are to be realised, the college administration should try to do something fast about the situation of the hostels.
Another very annoying issue that continues to frustrate students every academic year is the insensitive and astronomical increment of tuition fees. In the 2011/12 academic year, we saw the first dramatic increment in tuition fees, but for some reason some external forces intervened and the fees were reduced to a reasonable degree. Now again in this academic year, most annoyingly, the tuition fee for every course has increased by over 100%.
As a student myself, I am not arguing that the college should not increase tuition fees and other charges. What I am saying is that increment in such fees and miscellaneous charges should be congruent with an equal degree of improvement of services and facilities offered to students. However, even if that were the case, the college should not make an annual fee increase of over 100% for every course offered. Accordingly, increment with improved services and facilities should be done gradually over time, so that such increment would not be an unnecessary burden to the largely impecunious student population.
Regardless of all the loopholes in the services provided to students, the administration has made increment to such a degree, when there is a myriad of problems it should try to settle for its clients. Problems with such basic facilities as classrooms and chairs and desks are so commonplace that I feel disheartened when I see students racing to lecture rooms everyday to avoid standing during the entire duration of class, because there are not enough chairs and tables to accommodate them all. owing to the insufficient lecture room blocks, students sometimes have to wait outside a lecture room whiles others are using it, so that they could access it after the occupants are done with their lecture.
FBC is perhaps the only tertiary institution of its calibre where you would embarrass yourself if you are pressed with nature because there are no decent operational toilet facilities in the college for even lectures let alone students.
The college often goes for days without a flicker of electricity for students, and many other burning issues I would not care to discuss here.
Another important thing that warrants the urgent intervention of the college administration, or even the central government, is the appalling state of the road that leads to the college. Starting from Model Junction to the Leicester Road intersection and the rest of the road that leads to the college, I consider as a death trap. It is a miracle how drivers are able to negotiate those big wide potholes that could easily be described as gutters, scattered all the way up to that college. I urge government to take action and come to our aid by ensuring that even if that exceptionally bad road is not reconstructed, it should nevertheless be properly refurbished to an appreciable standard that befits any civilised road safety-conscious country. After all most of those in government who now wield power got their tertiary education from that university.
The college does not seem bothered to settle all these thorny issues that are making tertiary education a really tough journey for students. It is however bent on increasing fees without improving the facilities and services it offers that would enhance the smooth process of learning. Obviously, solving those problems would not suffice to equate the college with other universities in the sub-region who long ago were trailing Fourah Bay College. But it would at least ease the burden on the average Sierra Leonean student, while at the same time make it possible for students from poor background to continue their education unhindered and unrestricted by unnecessary fee increment.
(C) Politico 06/12/13
