Student union issues list of demands to the president

The National Union of Mauritanian Students, or UNEM, has written an open letter with demands to the country’s president, Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani, following its exclusion from a meeting the head of state had with students.

The open letter signed by Mohamed Yahya Mustafa, the secretary general of UNEM, was issued on 20 March, the same day as the president’s Ramadan Iftar banquet, which took place at the modern University of Nouakchott. Iftar is one of the religious observances of the month of Ramadan, and is often done as a community, with Muslim people gathering to break their fast together.

Mohamed Hamady Sidihelballa, the assistant secretary general for external relations of UNEM, told University World News that inviting a group of students from the country’s higher education institutions and excluding the elected student unions, mandated by students to represent them, was an attempt by the ministry of higher education and scientific research to block UNEM and its representatives from contact with the president because they would “expose failures to provide a decent life for Mauritanian students”.

“The open letter is, ultimately, an effort to convey the students’ demands and is the real voice that the president should have heard. We want to present him with a different picture from what was fabricated in front of him during his visit,” Sidihelballa said.

Also, in response to what UNEM called the ministry and the management of the National Centre for University Service’s “blatant attempt” to “conceal” the reality of students’ suffering during the presidential Iftar, students and UNEM activists organised a protest next to the road on which the president travelled and displayed placards with their demands, according to a UNEM statement posted on its official Facebook page, which also includes photos of the protest.

On the other side, the spokesman for university students who attended the meeting praised the sector’s achievements and impact on improving students’ academic conditions and student life, according to his speech at the meeting, which was posted on the ministry’s Facebook page.

Students’ demands

Mustafa said in the open letter that a list of student demands awaits implementation, despite repeated promises from the ministry and relevant departments and despite the urgent need to ensure an educational environment worthy of the nation’s youth.

These demands include improving transportation, housing and restaurant services as well as equipping scientific laboratories and reopening the central university library.

In addition, the letter calls for increasing and diversifying academic offerings to align with labour market needs and development requirements, updating curricula to keep pace with modern scientific developments and introducing masters programmes to all disciplines as well as re-activating non-operational doctoral schools.

The demands also include recruiting new professors to fill vacancies that negatively impact the quality of education, academic supervision, and the completion rate of scientific courses in most institutions.

The demands also include changing alleged unfair scholarship criteria which deprive deserving students of their right to academic support, the provisioning of financial support for early-career researchers at various levels, and to encourage scientific innovation.

Also in the letter are demands about democratising higher education and activating educational and administrative councils, while also regulating student representative elections.

Furthermore, the demands include expediting the construction of a university hospital to enable the training of medical students and provide healthcare to students on campus.

Call to the president

“Your Excellency, the President, these demands reflect only a part of the suffering of Mauritanian students, who face numerous difficulties daily due to the lack of basic services that should be available to them, not as a privilege, but as a legitimate right guaranteed by the laws regulating higher education in our country,” Mustafa said in the open letter.

The letter added: “In this context, excluding student unions from attending the Iftar meeting, despite their status as the legitimate representatives of students, sends a false message about the true demands and aspirations of Mauritanian students.

“Ignoring these demands … only serves to deepen the gap between decision-makers and students, who represent the cornerstone of this country’s future.

“We, at UNEM, reaffirm our commitment to these just demands and call on you, Your Excellency, the President, to urgently intervene to ensure their implementation as soon as possible, as we believe that building a strong and developed state depends, first and foremost, on distinguished university education that provides students with a stimulating and integrated academic environment,” the letter said.