Gulu university students miss exams as lecturers uphold strike
Some of the university property that students burnt down during a students’ strike at Gulu University last year. Monitor photo
What you need to know:
No retreat. The lecturers say they will not administer exams to the students unless the administration clears their allowances.
Gulu. For a week now, students of Gulu University at Kitgum campus still await their end of second semester exams after their lecturers went on a sit-down strike over unpaid allowances.
The lecturers, 40 in number, are demanding more than Shs90 million they claim the university owes them before they can administer exams to students.
Kitgum campus was initiated in 2011 with a current student population of 160 offering Bachelors in Business Administration, Bachelors in Education and Humanity and Public Administration.
The students were to begin their exams on April 18, together with the others at the main campus in Gulu Town.
However, the exams were postponed to April 25, following the strike.
Whereas the Kitgum campus students are still wondering whether they will sit for exams, their counterparts at the Gulu main campus finished their examinations at the weekend.
One of the lecturers who spoke to Daily Monitor on condition of anonymity on Monday, said the university administration has been giving them empty promises.
“The university administration has been downplaying this issue since last year. It’s high time they sort it or we don’t administer exams to the students at all,” he said.
The director of the Kitgum campus, Mr Stephen Opira, in a telephone interview with this newspaper on Monday, noted that the lecturers have laid down their tools over unpaid allowances, adding that students had not yet began exams due to the strike.
The Gulu University Vice Chancellor, Prof Jack Nyeko Penmogi, said they were already working to solve the problem. He, however, refused to reveal how many lecturers they had paid and how much they had spent to clear the arrears. “There was some confusion in the accounts department regarding the lecturers’ allowances, but all has been solved. We have had meetings with the striking lecturers and resolved their woes, everything is back to normal, students will begin their exams on Monday,” Prof Penmogi said.
Mr Mahmoud Khaled, the university’s spokesperson, also acknowledged that examinations at the Kitgum campus were not on due to the strike.
He, however, noted that the strikes are affecting the students interms of extra budgets to meet the costs of staying at school yet the semester has ended, adding he was hopeful the issues would be sorted out.
Rampant strikes
In March, lecturers at the main campus site in Gulu Town laid down their tools over unpaid salary and allowances. However, the university administration later announced they had resolved the matter and paid the aggrieved lecturers. In May last year, students at Gulu main campus went on strike protesting failure by the university administration to clear unpaid lecturers’ allowances so that they could administer exams.
