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Bongani Ndlovu, Chronicle Reporter
ABOUT 100 000 university students in Zimbabwe are struggling for accommodation amid revelations that the National University of Science and Technology (Nust) in Bulawayo is the worst affected institution in the country.
The Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Professor Amon Murwira, during an interview, said Nust only has 120 students living on campus while the rest of the close to 10 000 students, live outside.
Prof Murwira said Nust is the worst affected in terms of students who are in desperate need of accommodation.
“Nust has only 120 students who live on campus. The accommodation at Nust hostels that were going to be used were abandoned in the 90s. We are in the process of rebuilding Nust,” said Prof Murwira.
“We will be focusing more this year on Nust as it is the worst affected in terms of accommodation and we are making efforts, we are working with private companies and agreeing on the best way to provide it.
We have a lot of agreements with several companies, but the issue is that we have moved far on the Government side of trying to find accommodation for our students.”
Prof Murwira said Government has been working hard to try to address this and has built student accommodation around the country.
“There are about 80 000 students around the country that are struggling for accommodation. Across the institutions of learning the accommodation by 2018 was about 15 000, who lived on campus.
We have improved from there. In terms of the student accommodation programme, places such as EPOC Mine for Gwanda State University all students have somewhere to stay as we repurposed the houses there,” said Prof Murwira.
“In Lupane State University we completed accommodation for 1 200. At Kushinga Phikelela in Marondera, we have completed student accommodation for 300.
At Great Zimbabwe we bought Mashava and we are reprocessing all the compounds into student accommodation.
In Midlands State University we are completing accommodation for 1 200 and we have completed a hostel for 700 female students at Bindura University.”
He said at MSU Government was taking over a hostel that was not completed by a private contractor.
“We want to build university accommodation ourselves as Government, instead of the old model of doing it by contracted companies.
We have seen a lot of progress in finishing university or college infrastructure using the model that we are using, which we were granted by Cabinet in May 2018.
“To allow universities departments for instance of engineering to be the ones who are the main contractor in building the accommodation.
We believe that by using this method we are much in control, that people who will tell us the money that you gave us is not enough. We keep giving people money and not seeing any progress,” said Prof Murwira.
Speaking to Zimpapers Television Network, Zimbabwe National Students Union president Mr Benon Ncube said in-campus accommodation for most students was out of reach because to get it, fees must be paid in full, first.
“The problem is from the start as to how students access accommodation. We are required to pay 100 percent fees or three quarters in some institutions that are understanding.
Already those fees are complaining that they are too high and we can’t afford them. So those conditions are the ones that make us not access these accommodations.
The problem is not that we can’t fit into the accommodation, but it’s because we can’t afford the fees which are required for us to access accommodations,” said Mr Ncube.
Off-campus accommodation ranges from US$50 to US$100 per head per month around the country. — Follow on Twitter @bonganinkunzi
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