Lack of beds and money hits biggest university

Lack of student accommodation, and severe financial difficulties leading to threatened strikes by supply teachers and withdrawal of medical treatment for staff, are among problems at Senegal’s leading University Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD), according to local newspaper reports.

Le Soleil of Dakar reported that UCAD, West Africa’s biggest university, had 72,000 students – but only 5,136 beds.

“Even if half of them live outside the campus, overcrowding in the rooms is a reality which everyone must deal with. On campus, students acquire knowledge but also learn about life in society,” said the paper.

In building A, the biggest of 17 housing blocks, some rooms built for two students contained three beds. In one such room, said Le Soleil, there were six young men sharing.

Philosophy student Ahmadou Abdoul Ndiaye, who came from Daara in central Senegal, told the paper he had been surprised to find 13 cohabitees in the room when he arrived, none of whom he knew. But shyness vanished and the lack of privacy gave way to the pleasure of getting to know his roommates.

Some students from Dakar had chosen to live in overcrowded rooms, not through necessity but because they valued the friendships, found Le Soleil. But housing was the greatest problem for students, with private rooms outside the university costing at least CFA50,000 (US$95).

Meanwhile, financial problems are pressing at UCAD.

Tired of demanding payments dating back more than six months, supply teachers at the university are threatening strike action, reported Wal Fadjri.

“We have been working without pay since October. The first semester ended on 9 June, but nothing has been done by the university authorities, while we have expenses such as rent, electricity and transport among others,” a member of the association representing young PhD students told the paper.

The students have told the rector of UCAD, Saliou Ndiaye, that “if nothing is done in the next few days we shall bring the university to a standstill.

“We’re not ruling out boycotting courses. If we don’t work, the university will be totally paralysed for at least 15 days, because at the moment all the teachers are busy organising the baccalauréat exam,” the student said.

The supply teachers were lobbying UCAD’s rector because the accounts agency had told them it was waiting for his decision to pay them. The education authority blamed budget problems for the late payments.

Wal Fadjri said the teachers went through the same ordeal every year. In spite of the numerous teaching services they provided they had to wait, and protest loudly, before they received their pay.

This was the case even though UCAD and other universities could not function without them, as “public higher education institutions today are facing a structural deficit of teachers”, according to the paper.

In another report Wal Fadjri said lecturers belonging to the unions Saes and Sudes, and their families, were no longer receiving free medical treatment because of non-payment of accumulated debts owed by their employer – the education authority, representing the state – to hospitals, laboratories and pharmacies.

The debts amounted to hundreds of millions of CFA francs, said Wal Fadjri, which quoted the general secretary of Saes, Seydi Ababacar Ndiaye, as saying: “We are still being turned away from medical services, because the former minister claimed they [the debts] had been paid, which is clearly not the case.”

The paper said there was currently a high rate of staff illness, partly due to extension of the academic year and what one lecturer called the “infernal rhythm of courses”, which meant some teachers were working until 22h00.

Sudes general secretary Cheikhou Sylla said: “While medical cover isn’t being provided there could be repercussions for education.” He said it was not normal that funds for health cover, accounted for in the 2012 budget, had been used for other ends.

“The unions and the education authority agreed a budgetary amount for health expenses, and no-one should touch that.”

Saes also blamed the education authority for the situation. As well as UCAD’s CFA21 billion budget not being sufficient, it had not even been paid, said Wal Fadjri.

Teachers were also complaining that the authority was embezzling their salaries; while it claimed it had made the payments into banks or other institutions, it had not done so, reported Wal Fadjri.