ACADEMIC BUTCHERY

Is this great nation reducing itself to an academic, intellectual and
freedoms slaughterhouse? Scores of youngsters are rotting idly in
homes after the closure of the two constituent colleges of the
University of Malawi, namely Polytechnic and Chancellor College.
Sadly, no-one within the authority parameters seems to care about the
status quo. Already, the academic calendar of the two institutions is
crippled and the situation, if left as it is, is inevitably heading to
catastrophic levels that are bound to dispatch university education
into a dire kwashiorkor state.
At the bottom of all these bizarre circumstances, young people are the
great victims. Yes, they’re double victims in actual fact. Poly and
Chanco students have been victimised by victims of academic freedom
generated by some unapologetic species within the authority
parameters. This chain ultimately victimises the whole university
system since the absence of academic freedom would breed half-baked
graduates hence infesting the country with a crop of scholars that
have limited acquaintance as regards to relating theoretical issues to
practical ones.
The dogma clouding the issue is much more apparent than most of us
choose to acknowledge. That someone, somewhere is wielding more power
than they can handle at the expense of the youthful few, is no longer
mere speculation.  Go to school, work hard, acquire a decent
education, afterwards become productive citizens, they proclaim. Is
this just sheer rhetoric meant to betray the youth?
Cry my beloved country! Malawi, you cannot pay a blind eye to this
academic impasse, hoping for some miracle to solve the saga leaving
thousands of youngsters vulnerable in some self created corner of
academic jeopardy. I do not think the academic freedom chronicle is a
puzzle that a bunch of our professors would fail to resolve. It’s
taking too long and the mathematics doesn’t simply add up!
A horrible wrong is fusing this jazz and the youth need to be spared this music.