Can the Social role of University Students that seem to has lost be rehabilitated?

By Nyasigo Kornel

This was the philosophical question in the recent meeting of Tanzania University Presidents that has been held in Dar es Salaam, they think that it is time that University students have to participate to reform the society like it was in the former days of freedom struggle.

The growing individualized economic trend in the nation has lead to the ignoring of the needs of the community, especially in the education, which the World defines now as basic need.

Today stands in the position to struggle for the process of improving higher education in Tanzania. Results are seen, however they are always politicized to polish the needs of the time, space and events, says Madatta Benard the President of St. Augustine University.
According to his presentation, the University student’s organization is a wide initiative to make and address the rights, needs values and skills of students so that they may achieve the intended education goals at their Universities in a free risk environment.
Today the movement goes beyond addressing needs of the students alone, but the organization struggles that the coming generation should share the same prevailing privileges of education if any exist or even more.
“Our Mission is to ensure that students graduate from our Universities prepared to be committed public citizens and leaders who take an active role in building stronger communities and societies,” says the President of st. Augustine University, Madatta Bernard.
According to him, an active citizen is a person who understands the obligation and undertakes the responsibility to improve community conditions, build healthier communities and address social problems. He or she understands and believes in the democratic ideals of participation and the need to incorporate the contributions of every member of the community. Active citizenship can and must take place in the workplace, through political participation, and in the private, public and non-profit sectors. Communities can be geographic, interest-based and even "virtual" and are local, national and global.
However, the current approach used by Universities to achieve these qualities expected from us by the communities is often bared by the University politics, either within the students themselves or through the administration. This forces us to struggle every now and then, says Madatta.
To touch briefly on our country events, this clearly is a time of great uncertainty and anxiety in the country. These events affect our lives daily in many ways, even on our campuses.
Our new Strategy should now be to catalyze civic engagement and community building by identifying, generating, and supporting students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community partners who develop creative, effective approaches to active citizenship at the university and in communities around the world.
University is the only institution with intellectual youths with common solidarity and interest. If to speak of the failure of the youth, University should be blamed, be it in political participation, cultural deterioration and employment schemes, Universities has to be blamed for not speaking for the youth. Let us take the pattern of political participation that has sidelined youth, here is what society would expect form us as University organization.
Madatta says, “As a person very interested in the political participation of youth, or lack there of, I have attempted to define primary reason to why young people do not engage the political process. Of course, there are many more than a few reasons that contribute to the apathetic attitude young people express, but for purposes of majority rule, I will divulge into the three reasons that have been presented to me repeatedly through observation and experience.”
Many young people fail to see how the issues being discussed by politicians and candidates affect their own lives and the communities in which they live. This generation has been one of volunteerism in elections campaigns, with more than three quarters of young people having been active in a volunteer capacity of some kind prior to graduating from college. The act of volunteering allows one to witness results firsthand, while confronting problems on a local level. Many young people are unable to see similar results in the political process in ways that influence their own lives, which further contributes to the perception that politics is not a tool through which positive change can result. Still University organization has failed to speak for them.
Our role to the community as intellectuals should have an impact to the lives of the people and generations to come especially when it touches basic needs like education and lives.
Nyasigo Kornel is a Communication Officer of Health and Poverty Resource Centre (HPRC) and an experienced journalist.
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