Strike could mean that there are zero university graduates

The paralysing month-long lecturer strike at the University of Zimbabwe could mean that the institution may fail to produce any graduates for the first time since 2008, Zimbabwe’s Association of University Teachers (AUT) has warned.

With only two weeks to go until the end of the semester, the AUT’s legal team said in a statement on 19 May that it would engage with professional bodies on the danger of no students graduating under such circumstances.

“If the strike remains strong in the next two weeks, the entire semester is a write-off. No graduation for the first time since 2008 ... Meanwhile, the university administration is playing Russian roulette with the future of our students. Many degrees require regulatory approval by relevant professional bodies. No serious body will approve degrees in which students have lost three-quarters of a semester and, in the remaining quarter, were taught by half-baked, inexperienced lecturers drawn from the streets,” the statement cautioned.

‘A ghost town’

The strike started on 16 April after lecturers had been complaining about salary cuts dating back to October 2018, and that the university has been failing to meet contractual obligations to lecturers that include paying for health and other insurance policies.

In one instance, monthly salaries were slashed to less than US$200 per month (based on the lower, street value of the dollar). From these “paltry salaries”, the AUT says, lecturers are still expected to buy their own data to communicate with students as well as for the electronic devices needed in lecture rooms and offices.

The strike has spread to every faculty and department, and the university has been “reduced to a ghost town”.

Graduating anyone under these conditions would be irresponsible, the AUT statement said: “Students, parents and guardians alike, as critical stakeholders who have sacrificed scarce resources in paying fees, have a right to reject this blatant violation of their contractual rights and reject this irresponsible and cruel gambling with the students’ future.”

Falling standards?

Even without the lost tuition time due to the strike, falling academic standards have raised concerns. Advocate Fadzayi Mahere, a former University of Zimbabwe law lecturer, said on X on 15 May: “When I used to teach property law, the topic of land reform alone would take three weeks to cover. Now, they teach the entire property law course and the entire intellectual property law course over the same period. When will they read the literature? When will they conduct any meaningful research? How will they read the applicable cases? How will they be able to understand the controversies and opine on how they can be resolved? When will they master crisp legal writing?”

In another post, Mahere said even the most basic law course, contract law, cannot be taught in three or four weeks as is happening now.

“The law and its controversies must be read, digested, debated and understood. The historical background and philosophical underpinnings of any field must be interrogated rigorously to develop an effective, critically thinking and problem-solving legal mind. This slapdash microwave stuff, the cramming (versus comprehension) of concepts and arbitrary consolidation of different subjects (eg property law and intellectual property law) into one will not give us the law graduates we need,” she wrote.

Meanwhile, six student leaders are set to appear in court after they were arrested on 12 May on charges of disorderly conduct after they were involved in protests against the university administration.

One of them, Narshon Kohlo, is the chair of the University of Zimbabwe chapter of the Zimbabwe National Students Union.

He told University World News that there are final-year students like himself who are stranded and could not write some exams because of the strike.

He said some of them want to graduate and need lecturers’ supervision on their dissertations; others need to have their work assessed. There are also problems with basic service delivery in terms of sanitation, water supply and the food being provided in the dining area.

“Everything is a mess,” Kohlo said.