Second year engineering students at Ndejje University are bitter and have threatened to take the university to court over failure to allow them do their industrial training after making them pay a heavy fine for the strike that happened last semester.
The students were suspended last semester after the aftermath of a students’ strike that left university property destroyed. They were each made to pay a fine of Shs 750,000 after which they were denied a chance to go for industrial training with their comrades at Nakawa Vocational Institute ( NVI).
Since then, they have been negotiating a way out so that their cries can be heard and they go for the training this December but the negotiations haven’t yielded any results yet.
However, the engineering faculty administrator Mr Stephen Mujambula had mobilised students and promised them that they will go for their industrial training this December up to January.
To the students’ dismay, when they went to Nakawa Vocational Institute on Monday last week as they had been told by the administrator, they were shocked to be bounced back by the management of the institute that claimed they were not informed by Ndejje University about their training.
Led by Sextus Mwaka , the students have given the university up to January 1, 2017 to solve their issues and make them attend the training or they drag the university to court.
“We paid the fine they wanted us to pay; we even cleared the fees for the training, so why should they keep playing around with our minds? This is the last time we are using peaceful means to find ways of going for our training,” a one Barnabas Mubiru said
Although the university administrators did not officially communicate to Nakawa Vocational Institute to conduct and take the students through their industrial training, Fred Mayanja, the coordinator for industrial training at the institute says, they will not train any student until the university communicates to them.
“Ndejje did not inform us about these students coming here. We cannot train them until the university officially writes to us to conduct the training. I’m also wondering why your administrators mobilized you to come to Nakawa without informing us,” Mayanja questioned.
However Mwaka chief said the university is engaging with the institute such that they can do their training next year.
“I have been informed by the dean [of our] faculty that they will communicate to us early next year when we can go for the training,” he said in an interview with campus Bee.
It is mandated that engineering students go for industrial training at the end of their year one but these students were affected by the strike and their training was re scheduled to second year though with no clear days when their cries will be heard.
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