Development economist – Dr. Dalitso Kabambe has opened a conversation on the need to review student’s welfare in public universities.
He thinks; it would be ideal if public universities provided full boarding facilities and catering services to students, so that the learners only concentrate on their studies.
Currently, students fend for their own accommodation in locations surrounding their respective colleges, except for a few who reside on campus and pay a moderate fee.
However, Dr. Kabambe has described this as unattainable arguing it also has the potential of draining down students emotionally.
Times, he observed have changed, as children, as young as 16 or 17 years old were going to universities.
“We have a serious challenge within the university. We are bringing in students as young as 16/17 years old, there’s no accommodation and no food there. As a nation we need to urgently address this,” he said.
Going forward, he said, the starting point would be to invest in infrastructure and build more hotels across all public universities as a key enabler to having students live an enabling environment.
Kabambe made the observation on the sidelines of an album launch at Robins Park where Unima Catholic Choir had invited him to headline as guest of honor.
Addressing the patronage, he said, time had come for the nation to honestly discuss the role of youths in the national development agenda of the country.
For instance, he said, if the country is serious about turning itself as a middle-income economy by 2063 it was time to put the basic drivers in place and start investing strategically in respective capacities of youth.
“We may want to seriously go back to the model of community colleges and re-organise our future along tourism, mining and industrialization to that well capacitated youths can be absorbed into these fields and others,” said Kabambe.
Commenting on his invitation to grace the launch of the album launch; he said “it was amazing to see youths at Unima balancing their academic persuasions and their spiritual wellbeing.”
