On the Fee Hike

It is another Friday.

I have been trying to run away from commenting on the issue of the fees hike, but I think it is high time I rolled with the flow. Arrests are being made, the social media is awash with the #FeesMustFall campaign, one college has been closed and pretty much the whole nation (except for the Kamuzu Palace) has been shaken.

Little recap for those who are pretending not to know what is going on in Malawi: fees have been raised to K400, 000.00 per year in the public universities. There is an outcry against the hike from students against the hike, with the main argument being that the hike will compromise access to higher education. On the other hand, the ones who are for the hike are pointing out that there hike is a need if we are to maintain and raise standards in our institutions and so far the two sides have not been able to table the issue and reach an agreement. M’mene ndamvera inetu, eti?

I would ideally reserve the answer to this question for the end of the article but I think it is best that I respond right at the beginning. The big question most had when they saw an article on fees was probably that of which side I am on, of the two mentioned. Personally I think both are right (or wrong) which makes me think that it is much easier to reach a compromise because from where I stand, what the two sides are looking for should be the same (in a way); little increase in the fees to help raise the standards of higher education while keeping the maximum sustainable number of eligible students in college.

If we are to look at the decision by the university council to hike the fees to $560 per year (ili cha pamenepo tikaipanga convert mma dollars, eti?) I think it is justified, in a way. The cost of living is high and so is the cost of running a university. If we soberly look at the money the university spends per student in a year and the fees from the same, we will all realize that the hike is justified in a way. On the other hand, there is a number of problems, the first one being that the upward adjustment of the fees was long overdue which has forced the university to get into the “arrears mode” and effect a cumulative hike with all those little missed hikes in mind. Now that is a very big problem for obvious reasons.

The other big problem with decision from the university council’s decision to hike the fees by whatever percentage is that the council has decided to effect the hike in one stroke. The combination of the words “bad” and “idea” was in fact invented for such type of decisions. I was recently debating with one Chanco student who asked me if I would have hiked the fees to that margin if I was the one responsible and my answer was an outright NO! I personally think that an upward adjustment of fees of that margin should be a process and not an event as is the case at the moment.

The rest of us who are against the unreasonable fee hike have an argument that needs no explanation; not many will manage to pay that amount and a lot may end up being denied their right to higher education by circumstances. Zoona izizi.

So…

We have a situation. It is interesting to see what the people of the warm heart of Africa have resorted to as solutions. Students have unsurprisingly turned to demonstrations; some nicely timed and others not. The University council has stood it’s ground that the fees will not fall and the Chancellor (drum roll) has decided that the issue is too trivial for his comment.

To me, this leaves me with more questions than answers. Looking at the demonstrations, I wonder as to how effective they will be now that Chancellor College has been closed following the demonstrations and that the Polytechnic is on holiday. Kamuzu College of Nursing held their demonstrations and delivered a petition which is probably still sitting somewhere gathering dust in a place far from the intended destination. The College of Medicine is still on holiday and His Excellency Francis Makiya has written his subjects that they should not report to school come the opening date in the light of the hike. I am told the whole university student community now has eyes on COM and is counting on the doctors, physios, lab scientists and pharmacists to catalyze the fall of the fees. I am yet to be schooled on how.

Someone is probably asking as to what solutions the all-knowing Richie will bring forward today. Honestly, I do not think I have any meaningful contribution to this. This is pretty much beyond my pay grade so if people think that the fees must fall hash tag will help drop the fees, we will help them post it. If people think that demonstrating will help make the fees respect the rules of gravity, let them do it peacefully. My only big piece of advice is that we all need to be thinking of what we will do if the authorities (which have no good track record of listening, anyway) decide to stand their ground and refuse to “make the fees fall”. This is pretty important because that is a possibility.

How I wish I was in a position where I could make dialogue between the two sides a possibility! How I wish I was on the UNIMA council in which case I would have reasoned with my fellows and convinced them that what we needed was a gradual upward adjustment over the years and not a one-time unreasonable hike. On the brighter side, I will be a parent at some point and knowing what the students in our public universities are going through, I will save and invest for my child’s education from as early as I can.

To sign out, I think the hike though necessary is unreasonable and needs revision. Allow me to disagree with those who are saying that the main problem is that the fees are too high. The main problem is not that the fees are too high, but rather that we are broke and are unable to afford the fees. Probably high time the Government and everyone else began to think outside the box of ways of financing higher education. That is not a solution to the current problem, but something to think about for some of us who like me think of having six children in the future.

FEES MUST BE ADJUSTED!

Greetings from the "Grammar Nazi"

Esteemed ladies and gentlemen, today happens to be a Friday and as usual you will have your weekly dose.

I know that those who know how I am wired have been expecting an official Richie Online rant on the fees hike and issues surround it (like the poorly planned demos) or the Kasambara case. Well. Those would be good to comment on, but I think we have talked enough about that. We all have talked of how it is not good to hike the fees by that margin and we have all pointed out that it is an act of cowardice for an actual police officer to slap a defenseless and compliant (and beautiful) girl for whatever reason. Zimenezo tonse tagwirizana. On the other hand, there is something we have not yet agreed on and the elephant in the room has to be poked chifukwa zaonjeza.

Through the week, I have posted a couple of updates on Facebook... Well, only that they were not updates. They were two or three word posts which were (not where) meant to show that there might be a number of words with a similar pronunciation but different spellings in English. Some (especially teachers) understood why I did that. They picked it out that it was a cry; a lament for the declining standards in the command of the Queen's language in it's written form.  The other section of my Facebook friend list took it as a personal attack on them and their grammatical sins and took it to my Whatsapp to tell me to "stop the war". Glad to announce that it wasn't a war but a cry.

As someone who faithfully passed through the Malawian school system, I got introduced to the Queen's language at an early stage in my education. Standard one, if not that kindergarten in some poorly lit building near Chisitu Parish in Mulanje. The stuff got a bit serious in standard five when all the subjects except Chichewa language decided that they wanted to be taught in English. That became a challenge because most of us did not have a good command of the white man's language which meant that we had to struggle through deciphering the language before getting the gist of what was being taught. Of course the teachers resorted to throwing in bits of vernacular when teaching but the problem was that we still had to write the examinations in English. That, dear reader, was an issue. You all know the sort of thing that happens when someone is thinking in one language and expressing himself in another.

Fast forward to 2010 we got to college and a couple of years down the line we are here as graduates (at least many of those I was with). Our command of the English language is still not good and things are a bit worse for those in primary and secondary school. We hardly have the hope that  things will get better because the very people who are supposed to be instilling competence in our kids are busy posting updates on Facebook in broken English. I know that someone is already giving a judgmental frown on reading this, but believe me that this is the reality out there. This hurts because the old stars can happily mock our generation citing that they could do at standard 5 we cannot do in college; and they have a point.

I know that there are people who will disagree withe content of this article because they like to disagree with me, which is pretty fine. The other group will disagree because they think that knowing how to communicate in English isn't all there is and that people can do without it. While that might be true, I think there still is a price to pay for not being on the safe end of this. Of course that is not the point of this article. 

I have been thinking of why we struggle to put up nice constructions when it comes to writing, academic or otherwise and I think that I can happily announce to the world that I have cracked it. Two reasons, mainly or so I think; decline in the reading culture and (at a later stage) social networking. 

The way language and communication works is that you have to be a good listener if you have to be a good communicator. This entails that if you are into reading you are more likely to be better at writing. The reading culture is pretty much gone in the modern generation and it is very hard to develop good writing skills in such a situation. Nchifukwa ndimanena kuti we hardly have hope for a better tomorrow. I mean, how do you rectify that?

Social networking? Well. Pretty much everyone is on a social network of some sort and everybody has a hunger to be heard. There is too much to be heard and that has bred a thing called shorthand writing which is gradually being taken over by incompetence. The big problem is that people do not notice that it is affecting them and that even if you told them they would disagree. In short, we are moving from high school (secondary school) where we are half baked English-wise into a world of social networking and Malawi24 where people do not care about whether their grammar (and even spellings) are correct. Glad we can get away with it. 

How do we fix that?

Well. Not sure. Maybe we should get all the kids in high school to read Richie Online.

On a serious note, I think we need to re-align our education system back to the point where reading will get interesting. Instead of focusing on Life Skills (which I am told are coming in a bit too early nowadays), why can't we concentrate the nice reads in junior primary school so that these kids can get into "Language Mode" like Uncle Richie? I mean, some of you (achina Newiri) studies education and you know how to fix the rest in senior primary and in secondary school. As for the rest of the uncles and aunties in college and workplaces, it might be too late to change. Good thing is that it is not perceived as a problem, so we will leave things that way. Some of us who think it is an issue will keep on pointlessly complaining in the social networks once in a while.

I have one request, though. When we are texting we can at least observe the basic rules of capitalizing the first letter of a name and put a question mark at the end of a question. Those "how has been your day" things need question marks need something that looks like "??????" at the end.

Didn't write this to agree with the esteemed reader, unlike the articles for the past few weeks. My ideas might be far fetched, but that is why they are mine, right?

Zizungu zinabwera mochedwa and sizathu but that should not be an excuse for not writing well. Not knowing some things might cost you, and this is one. M'mene ndikuonera ine, eti?

DISCLAIMER: This Grammar Nazi has nothing to do with the one on YouTube

Friday Reflections: Poverty

It is another Friday.

A couple of days ago, I happened to be chatting with my sister over Whatsapp  and we happened to be sharing about work. The good lady shared a story of how one of the visitors (from the Netherlands) burst into tears upon seeing the conditions in which Malawians are living in.

Having grown up in various corners of Malawi, I have a very good idea of the conditions in which people in the warm heart of Africa live; a majority of them, at least. On the other hand, I recently spent a few days in the country from which the visitor who shed tears came from. I can relate the two and understand why someone would shed tears upon seeing our living conditions.

If you were to ask me the main difference between a poor African nation like Malawi and a rich European nation before I had a feel of what life is like on the other end, I would have shouted about the cost of living. The voyage I recently had showed me otherwise and what I have discovered is that life out there is very expensive but people do not feel the heat of it because they have reasonable earnings.

I am not good at following the numbers, but I am told that a good proportion of Malawians live on under one US dollar per day. That would be impossible for pretty much any European country, based on the statistics that I, even with my lack of interest found. The main point here is that our main problem is not the ever-increasing cost of living. Although the cost of living poses a great challenge, the main problem is that generally our incomes are very low at all costs.

I made an observation (I might have shared this already) that the problems that we have at a national level are the same that we have at an individual level. I am not sure if it is that climb from individuals into the government, or rather trickle down in the opposite fashion. The issue is that the problem of low earning hits everyone from the subsistence farmer at Nyezelera in Phalombe through the civil servant working in Blantyre before hitting the government machinery itself (somehow it spares politicians and some “connected “ senior gaf’ment officials).

That being said, I have always wondered why we are still in this state as a nation despite the many good things that are in the country; self-acclaimed patriots, self acclaimed educated folks, a promising economy, wise and dynamic leaderships (with other alternatives being transformational and the other adjectives mukudziwa aja) and natural resources. For a long time I used to think that we are where we are because we are doing the wrong things in our efforts to resurrect the economy. After a period of thinking deep and a couple of experiences, however, I have decided that the problem is that we do the right things the wrong way.

I will dwell much on agriculture because I am told Malawi is an agri-based economy (si mumatero a Tadala Rambiki ndi a Lenard Nkusa?) If we take a look at some advanced economies in the world, we will discover that a good number do thrive on agriculture. They have stable economies while we stay and enjoy our gold medals in poverty. Difference? They have realized the potential in agriculture and decided to commercialize it to make the most of it. If you come to Malawi, there comes a time when people talk about mechanizing and commericializing farming. The next thing you hear is that the tractors meant for the job have ended up on some minister’s farm or rather are rotting in some government warehouse. People continue to break their backs digging more than 2500 years after the biblical Prophet Elisha used a plough in his garden. Calculate the efficiency…

Going down to the individual level, the so-called farmer at the grassroots is failing to sustain himself comfortably because he cannot earn enough from his trade all thanks to the poor farming methods and marketing of products. The blame goes to the rain despite the potential of irrigation which remains untapped.

This example on agriculture came to mind because of the looming hunger in the country; a country which has all it takes to have enough and more when it comes to food. There is a lot that we are doing wrong with the right things; talk of education (si tikumachotsa mayeso ku secondary ndikumangokweza ma fees a ku college, paja?), tourism, mining, agriculture, agriculture, transport, agriculture, energy, agriculture, (all other industries you can think of fall here), entertainment and agriculture. The government, the faith community, the private sector, the media and all of us are busy doing the right things in the wrong way and the few who try to initiate positive change either do not get support or receive the greatest resistance ever (mukudziwa inu).

The interesting thing about this is that it is all to do with the way we think about the resources and systems we have at our disposal. What we need is a change in the way we think about them and possibly we will get to a level where we will use what we have to the fullest for our good as individuals and as a nation.

Ndi zimenezitu. If you want to change the nation from an importing to an exporting nation, growing industrial hemp might not be a good idea. To me the best starting point would be making sure we all have to satisfy our insatiable appetite for nsima. Before others get too many PhDs and many honorary whatevers we might want to make sure that there is equitable access to tertiary education among the wandu of this nation.

Just examples, eti?

Take home message? Look into your own life and see the things you do. They are probably right, but do you do them right enough to make the most out of them? Udzifunse wekha.

Random reflections on a Friday evening.

Got opinions? Share them on the Richie Online Facebook Page.

On Solicitors

Another Friday.

About a week ago I happened to be in Makanjira, Mangochi for work. Good, historic and interesting site, it is. Probably one of those sites you should visit if you drive a nice twin-cab (moni moni anthu nonse amene mumayendera ma twin-cab).

Anyway. That is not important and the same is the case with what I was doing there. It is what happened there that I would like us to have a discussion around. Discussion.

Soon as we got out of our mobility device some little kid, around 10 years or so to my guessing showed up. He has a speech problem taking it from the way he was speaking, but his intentions were clear taking it from the gesture of the open palm; he was looking for alms. Too bad for him I did not have anything I could give him which I tried to communicate nicely. My communication fell on a deaf ear and kid continued to follow. He only turned back when I got to the office I was to work in that day where the “locals” chased the kid away.

In the office I was greeted by a story about the same kid. It was told by my female colleague of mine who had been threatened by the same kid on a previous visit because she was not able to help the kid out with the money that he had “demanded”.

I am not a good storyteller, but I hope what I have shared here relates to at least five situations you have encountered if you live in one of the Malawian towns. Once in a while we meet a person asking for assistance on the streets and occasionally some take it to our doorstep. For every person who has some humanity in them, this situation poses as a challenge as it presents a dilemma; whether to help or not. Actually, that is justified because while some people who ask for help, there are some who do not. A greater proportion of people asking for alms in our towns do that because that is their trade. Actually people have made a profession out of it and have perfected it to an extent that the unsuspecting (if there are any) will end up sympathizing with them.

Adding to that, we have people living with various disabilities who are in our towns asking for alms; ranging from the guy skillfully playing his stringed musical instrument around Chayamba Building to the person moving with a little squire asking for food in the restaurants and chips stands (kuziwaya kuja, inu). And then we have those who sit outside our shops asking for our change.

The fact that at some point many of us do have to think twice before fishing out a note or a coin means that there is something off about the whole business of soliciting money in our streets. Naturally the Malawian culture teaches us to be friendly, hospitable and generous but it turns out some have built up skills aimed at abusing these gestures. The interesting thing is that for almost every interaction between a solicitor (ine zonena kuti beggar ayi) and a potential well wisher, one person gets disadvantaged. It is either someone who needs help doesn’t get it or some unsuspecting good Samaritan gets duped and ends up giving out money he could have used to buy 100 megabytes of a TNM Nite Shift bundle.

If we take a moment to disregard the people who ask for our resources because they are in actual need (ndipo alipo ochepa) we will discover that we are financing the wrong industry in town by giving our “bundle money” and change to these professionals. As I already said, some of these have made a career out of this and have defined routes they go everyday just to pry on this trade. Others have built houses and established businesses at the expense of the good Samaritans who finance them.

One might think that I am biased as I haven’t talked on the issue of those with disabilities and vulnerable people like orphans who have been forced to the streets because of their situation. Well. That is not a different situation but just another side of the same rusty coin, in my view. In as much as there are no good support systems for our vulnerable populations, I personally think that people have little if any justification for resorting to soliciting in the streets.

Unlike all the other articles I write here (where I am the know it all and have all the answers, the all wise and mighty Richie), I don’t think I have all the answers to this, and that is why I will throw it to the readership. Before I throw the questions, I will give you a couple of situations and I am pretty sure you have encountered a couple of similar situations.

I have once seen the kids who go begging for money at the Ginnery corner Chipiku shop (he was probably around 10-12 by age) engage in a dangerous fight with a guard. There has been a case where people have fought over a “soliciting spot” at Metro in Zomba. I have also heard a first-hand account of a woman who was threatened for and was almost beat up by four kids around the same age group or younger for not giving them the money they had asked for. Main point is that some of these people can get violent and can recite the swearing dictionary when they feel like.

I have seen people (there is a boy about my age and two women who linger around Ginnery Corner, beware) who go asking for money; telling the same (or different versions of the same) story to me right in Blantyre. I have heard of a situation where people found these guys bragging of how much they had made in that particular day in Lilongwe.

On the other side, I once helped a guy who was looking for food as he had been called unexpectedly to be a guardian of a patient at a district hospital only to be referred to Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital. After a lengthy questioning he got my K250 and I forgot about it. What was striking was that he ran to me to thank me and before he told me that he had eaten the nsima he needed, I got it from the aroma of  the bonya that was all over him.

The question remains. Tidzitani nawo anthuwa?

Should we be giving them our money? What if they are the pro’s who just want to get our hard earned money without any sweat (anyway, with a little sweat)? If we say we shouldn’t, how about those who are in need? What about those with disabilities?

Share your insights on the Richie Online Facebook page. Right here.

Another one on Success

Friday, July 1 in the Year of Our LORD, 2016.

This week happens to be one of celebration for yours truly and 60 or so of his friends who have just completed their 6 year march through the tunnel called medical school. Pretty much of an achievement, right? That’s why I just had to bring it out unnecessarily. Ndi ina yake.

I happened to have run out of ideas as to what to write tonight, so I consulted a sister of mine who told me I should write something about. Without going into details about the conversation we had, she suggested that I write about success myself. That sort of put me on the spot, because based on some of the definitions of success, I do not qualify to be called a successful human. Personally, I have issues preaching things that I am not so this was a bit hard.

But…

I got to remember yet another definition of success and it reminded me that I do not have to be there for me to start preaching about it, so here we are. 

Success.

I probably shared a similar sort of definition of success in one of my previous posts; the one that says that success is the continual achievement of one’s personal goals and aspirations (or something like that). Two critical things there. The first one is that of setting goals, and the second is that of continual attainment of the goals.

The typical Richie Online follower is probably fed up with the setting goals jazz because I have been humming the tune for a long time. The main point is that it success follows preset goals, otherwise it is just mere luck (in my view, eti?) Nkhani yaing’ono iyi.

The main issue that I would like to bring to light is the fact that the attainment of personal or collective goals has to be continual for it to be called success. This is why a good car or a house shouldn’t symbolize (or better still be considered as) success, although they might be connected to that.

In the event that someone sets some goals, there have to be short term goals which are leading to a big and overall long term goal. This means that success entails the continual achievement of the small goals on the way to the main goal. Again, at the end of the road if we are to truly call something a success, the long term goal has to be achieved and it needs to have a sustained impact which is not limited to oneself. Those are ideals.

There is a reason why the understanding of these facts becomes important, and it has everything to do with the Malawian setting in which we were raised (Timawerenga Amalawi tokhatokha izi, by the way. In case some of you are worried about the “Malawian” words). Being in such a resource limited country (running away from the word “poor”), we consider the things others consider basics as symbols of success. If you were to ask Kamuzu Banda, he would tell you that every person should at least have a house, but if you think of it, nowadays having a house is a symbol of success among us, which is not entirely true (I am not saying musamange nyumba yakavuta, by the way). The point is just that a decent living, nice accommodation and a nice means of travelling around are (supposed to be) basics and they should register as achievements not success itself. The word success should be left for things that leave a lasting mark on a couple of lives and if possible this poverty stricken nation. Osamaphweketsa dhilu.

A wise person once pointed out that the problem with most people’s goals is not that they are too huge and they cannot achieve them; but rather that they are too small and they do actually achieve them. True, if you think of it. Most of us become complacent with achievements and settle in comfort zones, ending up complaining when we cannot adapt to the ever-changing world around us. This is something to think about for you.

Main point of all this?

Achievement is the way to but should not be mistaken for success. The word success should be reserved for things that are worth the word, not some degree. Or Mazda Demio (I hope no one drives that in my readership). Or some crib.

Mwamvatu….