More shocking are revelations that students were indiscriminately beaten up by armed riot police who also looted the poor students’ property. The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions is shocked by the level of heavy-handedness that has been used against the students by security agencies. What the government is doing at the moment is depriving the majority of Zimbabweans their basic right, the right to education.

The government should bear the brunt of fee increases, for it is its obligation to subsidize the education of its citizens and not just pass on the costs to students and their parents. The time the students lost not attending lessons was not of their own making but was because of government’s failure to address concerns of striking lecturers, so why should students pay for government’s negligence?

We believe that this is a ploy to demobilize the students as some student activists have already been expelled from various Universities round the country.

The ZCTU therefore calls on the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education to ensure that normalcy is restored at the UZ campus and students resume lecturers. We also demand that a probe be carried out on the torture of the students and looting of students’ property during the evictions.

We further demand that government addresses problems bedeviling the education system in the country. The issues of high fees at tertiary institutions, a decline in education standards and continued harassment of student leaders remain unsolved as government turns a deaf ear to these. As long as these issues remain unsolved student leaders will organize for more serious strikes and resistance against the government and we will stand by our children.

12 July 2007

Wellington Chibebe, Secretary General