COLLEGE MUST REOPEN By: Sheku putka Kamara – mass communication department, fourah bay college – university of Sierra Leone It came from nowhere, today it is found everywhere. Devastated and languishing, it has left our country. Focusing on us rather negatively; it has made the International Community. Well the Ebola Virus has truly done the worst, but are we to continue living like this? I do not think so. I respect every contrary view to this piece, but as a onetime and still a spokesperson for students in the University of Sierra Leone, I believe that college must reopen now. Here is my take. By now, we all know that Ebola could be spread through body contact, but wait a minute, how much of body contact that occurs in the universities? Reminiscing on how things operate in the universities, I see no reason for colleges not to have been reopened by now. The universities are not like schools, where pupils find it incumbent to play and have all necessary body contacts. The colleges are well arranged places of civilized people in society no matter how one looks at it. These are persons that are most often seen as role models in society. They are the ones who most time makes the rules in their localities. As it stands, I see a state of perplexity and disruption and if colleges continue to be closed as it is presently, I picture a grief-stricken state. I say this because; we have so many weak learners in the universities. Leaving them unengaged, college wise will certainly help in validating my above hypothesis. Look, we have students in this country who do not study at all, until examinations are here and now. If the colleges remain close, what is the fate of these people that we describe as future leaders? I was talking to a few of my colleagues the other day and they clearly aided to making me sort out this piece. In fact just this morning, one of my friends called me to know about my take as to why colleges have still not reopened. I knew he only wanted to get things authoritatively student wise and I was clear enough to tell him that I think that colleges should have been reopened by now. Avoid body contact is a simply phrase that every student in this country would abide by if colleges are reopened now. Even for the pupils, we now have some them that are taking all the necessary precautions and that is no longer a secret. Putting the appropriate modalities in learning institutions will definitely be a good step in the right direction. Now, why not place at least one thermometer for the checking of body temperatures in every institution in this country? We have these chlorine mixtures almost everywhere in Sierra Leone today. Why not apply this in the colleges? Some places of work have seized and closed operations somehow, but in the same vein, thousands of other places are operating in full force. We still have overcrowded places at these times and that is very much evident when once one enters the central part of Freetown. The PZ, Abacha Street, Bombay Street, Doff Cut and Rawdon streets areas remain densely populated as I write. Is this the same for our colleges? Certainly no, but why are we not reopening the colleges? I hope people will see some sense in this discourse. If at all we fear the risk of coming in contact with the virus, we are left with the option of taking the precautions. Reopen ours colleges and watch us do things normally. Our universities are not places where we play and dance. They are not places where our lecturers beat us for stubbornness. They are not places where we get chocked up and come in contact with everybody just like that. We have our settings that are very much preventive. In fact, Ebola or not, we do not just talk to, neither touch even our colleagues that we know not, so why putting the learning process in s stand still? Reopen the colleges; it is needed now and now. If things had went well, this year’s graduation ceremony for the University of Sierra Leone was to be held in this coming December. We have millions of things that have gone rather inexcusable all in the name of Ebola. I see a situation wherein the students weep not in tears, but in heart saying that ‘we could handle this situation.’ We should not allow Ebola to kill off every of our vital sectors. We are stronger than that and we cannot even afford that. Ebola, no schooling; Oh no we are tired of that already. Students are mortals themselves and sitting like this all the time is not a positive trend at all. Ebola will by now think that we respect it so very much, that we are now even stopping to do what we ought to have done. It is a time we put a stop to this. This is the time we raise our thinking memories and act as sober living mortals, because ‘if not now, when?’ One area that I believe improvement is needed is the area of transportation to the colleges. As it has been stated, no overloading is allowed right now. We want this trend to continue. We want our government to do a little more to aiding the situation. Buy us a few more busses through the millions of dollars that have come in for the eradication of the Virus. So many cars, vehicles, vans etc are now in for this Ebola fight. Send some to the universities to ease off the transportation burden. Place the stringent checking measures in all our universities and forget about the ‘body contact’ because ‘we the students know how to handle that.’ Do this and do it now because ‘we want our colleges and institutes to reopen now.’ SHEKU PUTKA KAMARA IS A FINAL HONOURS TWO STUDENT OF THE MASS COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT OF FOURAH BAY COLLEGE – USL
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 12:43:44 +0000
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