Irate students at CBU yesterday grabbed a tear gas gun from a police officer assigned to keep vigil at the country’s second largest university.
The students could be seen playing the gun as they sang anti-government slogans within the university grounds.
Meanwhile, Minister of Higher Education Michael Kaingu has warned that Government will close the Copperbelt University (CBU) if the situation at the institution remains volatile and unconducive for academic activities.
And students at University of Zambia (UNZA) Great East Road campus yesterday ran riot demanding to be paid full bursaries instead of the K1,100.
Speaking when he met CBU management in Kitwe yesterday, Dr Kaingu said Government will close CBU if the students continue protesting.
“If the atmosphere at the Copperbelt University does not provide for academic life, we shall close it, and if we close the institution, it means the senate has failed us. We cannot continue to operate like this,” Dr Kaingu said.
He challenged CBU management to find a lasting solution to the protests, which are denting the image of the institution.
Dr Kaingu wondered why students are protesting over meal allowances when Government has committed to resolving the matter through the payment of project and accommodation allowances.
He said Government is working tirelessly to ensure the students are paid within the shortest possible time.
“It is important for these students to understand Government’s fiscal policy. For Government to pay them their meal allowances, it has to collect revenues from taxes, it is a process and there can be delays,” Dr Kaingu said.
And reacting to the behaviour of the students who walked out before he could address them, Dr Kaingu said it is evident that the students do not want to learn and are being incited by politicians to cause chaos at the institution of higher learning.
“I went there as Minister of Higher Education to listen to their plight with the view of engaging them in dialogue but they walked out. What happened is not only embarrassing but unfortunate,” he said.
Dr Kaingu said he will engage President Lungu on the next step to take.
He said it is unfortunate that some of the students who are protesting come from vulnerable families and are on Government bursaries which are paid using tax-payers’ money.
And CBU chancellor professor Muyunda Mwanalushi said the situation is volatile and not conducive for learning.
fyakuifwaila you hav taken too long to pay them under a peaceful environment,now you ll learn it a hardway.pf you have jusr failed.
Why do they even pay them?They don’t have parents?
KAINGU HAS NEVER SUCCEEDED IN ANYTHING. IT BE CHILDREN DISCIPLINE, TAMING HIS APPETITE FOR SEX AND NOW IT’S MANAGING LEARNING INSTITUTIONS. THE GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN LONG AGO ADVISED TO CREATE A FUND FOR STUDENT LOANS, ONE WONDERS WHAT THEY ARE DOING UP TO THIS TIME. STUDENT LOANS WOULD HAVE SOLVED ALL THESE STUDENT UNREST PROBLEMS. NO ONE WOULD HAVE BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO SPEND AN EXTRA YEAR AT UNI KNOWING THAT THE LOANS HAVE TO BE PAID BACK. HENCE, THESE RIOTS BY STUDENTS COULD HAVE BEEN A THING OF THE PAST.
PF are so disorganized, Your Violence has now gone to students?? very very bad.
Let the students also learn not to Vote for such people.
Closing the Institution? Mmm They will come break your office Mr Minister. It’s your incompetence which has caused this.
Ubupuba! Concentrate on your studies, mob activities never got anyone a good life.
#kaingu must fall….hahaha
What will Kaingu tell them? Whe he has failed to tame his daughter.
Kaingu has nothing to offer its only visioneless Lungu who can appoint such an empty tin like him.
Scrap off the BC, invest all funds given to them to Cbu and Unza to enable fees drop replace it with a paying method of charging per credit, that way every student will be charged based on the amount of credits each course has per term or semester. Accommodation should equally be paid by individual students. This is workable if government increases the bed spaces and provides for everyone. It works in some Asian countries. Where school feels in university are as low as the number of courses a local takes, the total amount they would have paid is equivalent to how many credits per courses they took. e.g 1 credit is K100 thus a 2.5 credit course is k250.
Consequences of free education.
More like poor management. I always say politicians must stay away from the areas of operation. Let the administrators do their job. For instance, there’s a PS in Kaingu’s ministry. Why then is Kaingu so wrapped up in this? Something is wrong with the way we are doing things in Zambia.
The whole minister of higher education saying government can only pay tudents when tax payers pay, this is tantamount to washing dirt linen in public, he is in short saying government does not plan.
What a shame!!
The GRZ must be very broke.
a hungry man is an angry man…..
you cannot engage in a dialogue when you know the problem in total and its you who has the solution. the govt promised to be funding these guys and also the problems at CBU are very well known to you Dr Kaingu; you have chosen to protect your friends and your interests only. MR MINISTER, COUNT being a minister of such a ministry a big priviledge, alas you are playing with souls. i dont support their walking away, but students are right you have taken long to sort the problems at CBU and worse still you called their academic parents as behaving like goats. they will NEVER respect you with that attitude. civility must start with you as an elderly person, parent, minister and doctor.
Dr. opanda nzelu. Kaya be mupasa u’dokota ni bani?
They have failed to pay meal allowances, now they want to accuse the opposition of inciting violence, Hunger is a great incitement of a violent revolutions world over, The Minister is an MMD failure who people rejected in 2011 through the Ballot and brought back by the current crop of PF leadership. A failure is a failure no matter what you do to them.
For a long time politicians have been riding the tiger and now they are falling off! What I mean here is those habits we have been condoning and in most cases paying a blind eye to are now maturing and will now rise to really do harm to those who created them or allowed their flourishing! Good luck, Zedians. Raiding airports, grabbing firearms from security personnel – that is how it starts… all fueled by brazen mediocrity.
Closing the institution will no solve anything. If anything, it will just prove more costly for the govt. Why can’t you just address the issues they have raised? Pay them their dues and am sure they will not be rioting. What’s so difficult about that?
If ther is excess money to dish out to marketeers, how can govt fail to pay the meal allowances that are budgeted for?
Honourable Kaingu, please go to the bottom of this unbecoming behavior and put in serious controls and conditions of acceptance when one applies for admission to our public learning institutions. We all have been to Universities and these unruly students should not think they can wilfully destroy people’s property and go scotfree.
Remind them in their acceptance conditions that any such acts should be treated just like any other offence by a criminal and will be dealt with individually. Also, why cant you arrest them, take them to jail, expel them from higher learning institutions and ban them from entering any other higher learning institutions?
Imagine a student grabbing a gun from a trained police officer, what will be the consequence if it leads to someone being shot by the…
contd
Imagine a student grabbing a gun from a trained police officer, what will be the consequence if it leads to someone being shot by the unlicensed and illegal gun handler? Lets be serious in some of these issues. Sponsored students by the opposition belong to jail for a minimum of 30 years, period!
@UFO:
Solution is simple: Pay the allowances on time, Pay Lecturors their dues on time – the Universities will run smoothly as it used to be in the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s.
Below is an extract from the PF manifesto:
5.4 UNIVERSITIES
Universities play a critical role in national development through research,
consultancy and training. The number of existing universities is not
adequate to cope with the increasing demand for university education and
the few existing institutions are poorly funded, thus compounding the
brain – drain, institutional instability, and student unrest.
Exactly Kalok. In Choma people grabbed the same from police & turned it on them. In Kitwe a cop was beaten up by a complainant. Now this. Slowly, slowly we are moving towards a dangerous escalation. Very soon people will be carrying their own firearms. Like Kadansa said ‘violence breeds violence’.
How many police posts have been burnt down in the last year. People are fed up with state brutality & mediocrity & they are standing up to defend themselves.
Ba Monko keep that gun for future use. Bapombo they will keep coming to disturb you everytime Lungu tells them. It’s better to be armed than to allow bangwele to harass you. Viva student power viva! Viva! Abash Lungu and Dora Siliya! Abash!
Kikikikikiki! I think I know you. You were the roommate of that mature who used to complain a lot.
Time to stop this bursary thing is long overdue. Its just not sustainable. Look at the peaceful environment Mulungushi University where parents are paying 100% for their children. In fact parents have resorted to sending their children to China, India etc for tertiary education. Bursaries scheme in Zambia has been abused and its not just sustainable anymore be it under PF, UPND or ADD!!!
@Mina: Have you considered the intelligent children who pass their Grade 12 with flying colours but can not be admitted to University/College because their parents are poor? It’s the responsiblity of Govt to educate its citizens thats why we pay tax. The current bursary system is absued because there is no accountability.
With proper planning and budgeting, it is possible for Govt to offer bursaries to those students whose parents are poor. The rich have an option to send their children to local private Universities or outside the country, what options do the poor have, zero!
it is true that pf is a bunch of *****s who doesn’t know the problems affecting these students. how can kaingu say they close the school is that the solution to the problem? how much is edgar and his group going to spend on the trip to vatican? a normal president would have cancelled this trip and attend to the plight of our starving students but knowing edgar he will pay a deaf ear as usual.
this is why we say we need to kick out this ***** from plot one this august.
This is getting more dangerous! I think there are better ways of managing the situation than always resorting to brutal force. What if a loaded weapon landed into the hands of a lunatic? Lives would have been lost here. The IG should control this incompetence by his gang before the same weapons turn against them!
What’s gone wrong at CBU? There was a time when CBU was never associated with riots, demonstrations, closure, etc. Such behaviour and conduct was the preserve only of UNZA. Nowadays chaos, disruption of lives of law-abiding citizens as they drive by is the order of the day. One wonders if dark forces, other than the despicable, the infamous cartel, are not behind the mayhem at CBU!
Grabbing a gun from a police officer and showing off in front of a camera is so incriminating i m amazed the so called intellectuals could do such a thing without thinking about consequences.
In a poor country like Zambia, it would be disastrous and education would REALLY be only for the rich mafia’s children if bursaries were cancelled and 100% fees introduced. Even in the UK, students are still assisted with loans to pay fees and grants to help with living costs. If the system in place now in Zambia says students get meal allowances, why should it surprise government when they fail to pay the same for prolonged periods and students demonstrate or riot? Why should they go for days without eating and be expected to be in lectures? Not all the parents can afford to fill the gaps. It is a failure to implement a lasting and fair system. It also smacks of a lack of priorities and understanding of the value of education.
THIS IS TOO BAD FOR THE FAILED PF LEADERSHIP. PF HAS BEEN TESTED AS A FAILED PARTY AND THIS TIME WE MUST GO FORWARD. POOR FARMERS HAVE FAILED ZAMBIANS IN THE PAST FIVE YEARS AND WHY GO FOR THEM? THEY HAVE PUT THE COUNTRY IN DEBTS IN THEIR FAILED SO CALLED DEVELOPMENT.
…went there to listen to their plight when it has been all over the daily papers…does he also mean the opposition instructed the treasury to delay paying the students..??….those days for years, the mines used to pay all employees by the 1st of every month…never one day more…so let the govt pay as per schedule period….then there will be no need for Kaingu to go there full stop….
With the fact that government knows that many students come from not well to do families which is the reason as to why they put them on bc,how does it expect those many students to survive without the allowances for almost a month now and then blames opposition for that which is their responsibility.this is not political for students its about making their voices heard which is what is the right thing to do
Fish out the ring leaders and the show shall be ended.
Expel after arrest and hold in prisons.
Zambian let us think above board. honestly is stoning tax payers motor vehicles a solution to this problem.let every parent who has a child at these universities take responsibility of their actions. If by any chance they stoned their parents car do you think they can blame the government or the student.so let them choose between school and riotous acts
Let them go distance learning to avoid confusion. Zambia is a peaceful nation. What is so special about those few students when they are alot of Zambian who are in government universities and colleges and yet they are not drawing any money from government.
It is saddening that students from the supposedly institutes of highest learning behave in such a manner. No dignity! They can demonstrate but not riot and target the same people who pay thei fees i.e the tax payer. A student grabbing a teargas from a police officer shows the caliber if our officers! Weak an hopeless!
@Punani Jackson. Very dull, thats not a gun but a tear gas launcher. And the other thing, think about those students without parents being in an institution for a month without food and Kaingu telling them “Tax payers haven’t paid, keep learning”. That shows that the PF has no interest the education sector of this nation. By now all the money is being set aside for their mobilization to win elections which will never happen.
Its the Devil who is behind the protest u killed sata now u want to create confusion in copperbelt u want more blood to win erection no ways GOD forbid wakyepa sana this can cost yo ~ not us many zambians to suffer when u notupantila tobe tuli safe kuganda yobe no ways boy.let our working govt work.
People shud know that big nations iraq,iran,rsa,nigeria,angola,brazil etc have gone thru worse problems even to the extent of reducing salaries of civil servants here u cry for unpaid meal allowances nonse scrap it off this is a citical period when all nations have big economical problems. If one thinks can do better# learn from nigeria now they regret having changed the president.things are bad in nigeria x50 times
Iwe chi @Kyubi. Punani Jackson is right. Whether it is a tear gas launcher or rocket propelled grenade, it is still foolish to grab this from a cop and parade yourself in front of a camera.
Solola Bye!
Those supporting these criminals must be sick in their heads. A student shouldn’t have the time to disarm a police officer. This chap is a criminal and GRZ should not tolerate this nonsense. Where these so called ”students” come from, some don’t even have three meals a day. Expel these criminals and send them to jail. Keep these two schools closed until after elections. Let their sponsors look after them. This is dangerous, what is K1000 for anybody to even think of disarming a police officer? Ati University students? What a joke you are guys. Its not GRZ’s job to provide free tuitions, meal and other allowances but GRZ’s job to provide those facilities and not sponsoring the students. Zambia is poor because of too much vamahala. This must come to an end.