Zimbabwean students at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Bulawayo, staged a demonstration on Monday, demanding an end to the lecturers’ strike.
NUST lecturers have been on strike for almost four weeks as a show of defiance against what they call the maladministration of the institution.
The protesting learners stormed the university’s Selbourne Park suburb campus and used boulders and thorny tree branches to block the road and the university’s entrance gates.
The university had to call the anti-riot police unit to disperse angry students. The police used water cannons against the students.
NUST spokesperson Felix Moyo said the university and striking lecturers had reached a compromise and lecturers would resume on Tuesday.
“NUST council, management and lecturers’ union have reached a consensus. Lectures will commence tomorrow (Tuesday),” he said.
Student leader Lesly Tinashe Munaiwa, who is the university’s minister of student affairs, said dialogue between the students’ representative council, administration, and NUST Educators Association had failed to address the situation, and as such, confrontation became the best cure at their disposal.
“When the ordinary becomes extraordinary, fearless confrontation becomes the sole option at our disposal,” he said.
– African News Agency (ANA), Editing by Devereaux Morkel
