Have you ever thought of doing exams of first semester in the first weeks of the second semester? This will surely come true if Makerere University is to open in February or any month of next year 2017.
December 1, 2016, marked exactly one month since the university was closed following the President’s directive. The university had to be closed following strikes that seemed inevitable for the staff and students at campus.
Yes, the decision is already taken, the mess is already achieved and business around Makerere paralyzed, with street vendors and hostel managers losing huge chunks of their businesses. Passing around Makerere University of late reminds you of an abandoned grave yard except for the Marabou stocks still attending their lectures from the trees around campus and lacking human heads to peck and bog on.
One thing, though, has remained a mystery: we cannot predict when Campus will re-open, not even our famous city pastors have tried to prophesy. Others are worried of their faith to graduate in January.
One can’t even understand why students would strike before graduation, bearing in mind that jobs are scarce in Uganda.
The more you delay to graduate, the more jobless and broke you will be. I heard the MAK students destroyed chapatti and kikomando stalls from Kikoni: could the curses of the owners be the ones retarding the re-opening of the Campus? Let me leave this for another day.
But at the end of it all, Makerere will re-open; that’s one thing we are sure of. Whether it’s next year or the coming year, it will open. Students are distracted from the truth, most especially for Simon Wanyera, GRC school of education whose Bananas were squashed by police during the FDC fundraising.
We were told he brought rotten Bananas and so they could not be allowed to fundraise rotten money from rotten Bananas.
But what happens when Campus opens in February?
The worst will come to the worst if campus re-opens in February. Students will forever never forget that semester. I term it ‘Colonialism of Makerere by Mr.Museveni’, a situation where 2nd semester of academic year 2016-2017 will open with the last part of first semester of the same academic year overriding each other.
Meaning the end of semester exams for first semester will be done in the first weeks of second semester of academic year 2016-2017. That is the first weeks of February to March. During the same semester, as students carry on with exams or even lectures, they will also have to attend to lectures and exams at the same time. This will be the most confusing thing, incompatible and contradictory semester. Of course time will not wait for students to catch up fast. A student will be required to concentrate on his or her exams by default, not proxy.
Don’t forget to consider that this semester was supposed to be the semester of Guild campaigns, so count the campaigns taken to next semester. There are other activities the university will have to carry out concurrently. During a period of Guild elections, the campus is a safe haven for strikes. Students are more into politics of no activism during this period. And the semester exams will be brought to a halt in a differing style.
Before the students know it, end of semester exams for the second semester will be in a slam for conclusion. There will be less than a month to whine on. The finalists will not have this time, unless one wishes to stay for more time.
Though the Government is finding out ways to bring lasting solutions to Makerere problems, I see strikes are a menu on a well cooked delicious meal from Kikoni. Let’s wait and see if no other strike will happen from the time campus re-opens to the time one Campus Bee writer (NamesWithheld) becomes pregnant and gives birth!
