By Shifrah Kayaga
Praised as the ivory tower and the 4th in the whole Africa accommodating more than 70,000 students pursuing different courses, it has been realized that there are certain stop ups at MAK that get on the students’ nerves to make them live fearful campus lives.
The anticipated quality education and other co-curricular activities have turned up to weigh less compared to the threats new students have mentioned more likely to make them not so much concentrate but keep alert. Some students have talked to us concerning this particular issue and all of them seem to have different answers rotating around the same fears.
According to Peter Mutagwaanya pursuing a bachelor of education and a former student of Kajjansi Progressive, he is so scared of this now Sexually Transmitted disease Aids. He was told universities especially MAK has got a high AIDS prevalence amongst its students. He says “through socializing, I’m more likely to get quick jobs as some of my fellows have got, though my biggest threat is that through this because I’m now a grown up-man, I might end up getting some one who will spoil my future and this is scaring me a lot because the university is sick in history”.
Grace Kiconco a student Pursuing the same course as Peter expressed her joy that coming to MAK was a dream come true. That After going through a lot, she didn’t know that her feet would ever taste MAK soils.
As for her, the threats seemed to be the usual ones as she says,”the only threats that can never let my brains rest after encountering them are the rude and tough lecturers who fail to attend lectures, give out retakes and after ask for sex to make your problems disappear (sex for Marks).”
She adds that,” this only has been my greatest threat and it has forced me to make sure I miss not any lecture because I wouldn’t want to be a victim.” Apart from that, Grace is so confident and excited of the university though disappointed in away that during her years at Mengo Senior School, who ever talked of the university meant it to be a real paradise mostly Makerere though things are so different as she even has no time to visit friends a thing that is not okay with her.
For the BCOM student Micheal Nkaambo from Central College Mityana, says this wasn’t his expectation at all. He wanted his 19 points to push him to a different and better university with in Africa. All he has got to do per now is to force himself to gain some love for the campus though things are not as good as they seem. Micheal’s threat is the missing marks syndrome that can even make you repeat a full semester.
He says “the missing marks thing is confusing me the more, how can some one write the exam, register on the Exam attendance list and after the marking period, the lecturer declares that the marks are missing huh?” Micheal sees this as unfair and is standing to find a solution to this by helping fellow students and after fighting this, that’s when MAK can turn up to be his best university.
However, all this can’t stop Makerere from admitting more students yearly and as always “the struggle continues”.
