Thousands face an uncertain academic future as negotiations stall and campuses fall silent
By Job Mwavuwa
Thousands of university students yesterday remained stranded as a lecturers’ strike continued to paralyse academic programmes across the country, with no resolution in sight.
The industrial action has halted lectures, examinations and consultations, leaving students either confined to silent campuses or back home, their academic calendars in disarray. For many, the financial toll is mounting fast.
“Most of us have already spent heavily on accommodation, food and transport. With learning suspended, we are left wondering how we will recover the lost time,” one student said.
The disruption threatens to cascade through the entire academic cycle. Examinations face postponement, graduation ceremonies hang in the balance, and the admission of incoming students could be delayed — compounding an already difficult situation for institutions already stretched by competing demands.
University administrations and lecturers’ representatives have held talks, but an agreement has proved elusive. Students’ leaders have urged both sides to return to the table without preconditions, warning that continued inaction risks irreversible damage to an academic year that cannot simply be reconstructed.
The strike lays bare a familiar and frustrating pattern in public university management — disputes that escalate to the point where students, who bear no responsibility for the underlying grievances, absorb the heaviest consequences. Lecturers have legitimate concerns that deserve a serious response. University management has institutional obligations it cannot defer indefinitely. Government holds the financial levers that could unlock a settlement today.
Every day of inaction is a day stolen from students who have done nothing wrong.
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