Africa 24 news

By Africa 24 journalist

Students of Limkokwing University of Creative Technology in Sierra Leone and students of Fourah Bay College of the University of Sierra Leone are having their graduation ceremony tomorrow.

Both universities are graduating for the first time simultaneously on weekday in April. Unlike Fourah Bay College, established since 1827 and which, every year, has more than at least one thousand graduates, Limkokwing University students are also graduating with quite an encouraging number of students comprising both government of Sierra Leone paid-up students and some private students.

The graduation ceremony for the Malaysian private university in Sierra Leone is happening at the Bintumani conference hall at Aberdeen village in the west of Freetown on Tuesday 23 April, 2024.

While Fourah Bay College’ graduands will be marking their congregation ceremony at their historic colonial ground, at the Amphitheatre at the college campus.

Last year, the first set of students (government sponsored) graduated, totaling around 900.

For Limkokwing graduands they are caught with ambivalent feelings of sadness and happiness.

Between 2019, 2020 and 2021, the first and second batch of students who’ve graduated and with some graduating this year had been brutally marginalized, beaten by government police and armed security officers on the streets of Freetown for demanding the Government of Sierra Leone to paying their tuition fees with contract signed with the university management and the former government of president Ernest Bai Koroma.

The winning government led by President Julius Maada Bio had refused to pay for about 1,200 studnets whom the previous APC party in government had failed to clear off their withholding tuition arrears to the Malaysian private university.

But after series of protracted negotiations undertaken by a number of CSOs, university authorities, tertiary education ministry, and the intervention of the education committee in parliament, a decision was approved to allow for payments to be made by finance ministry to enable government students of Limkokwing to finish their studies and graduate.

The success to get back the angry, disgruntled, disappointed, neglected students into the classrooms was largely influenced by students embarking on series of streets demonstrations as they were demanding the government to pay their fees. They were showing placards requesting for funds to fund off their education journey. Around the cotton tree of Freetown, students and police clashed and police barricaded other parts of the streets leading to the arrests and beatings of many female and male students and a prominent civil society activist, Thomas Moore Conteh.

The Government of Sierra Leone had raised serious concerns of corruption and mismanagement of public funds and weakening procedural existence of the university aided by the previous government of former President Koroma. The public and the government had been arguing that students are paid for by the government some huge sums of money in dollars, and downsized the fees with the agreement of the university management.

President Julius Maada Bio of the governing party, SLPP, after serious thought on the issue and behind the doors meeting with parliamentary education committee stakeholders, advised for payments to be made to enable students to return to the classrooms.

They had been out of the classrooms for two years, and that caused most stud nets to either become dropouts or further their studies in overseas universities, while many sought admittance to other private universities in Sierra Leone.

Gauging the mood of students  just two days of their graduation ceremony, a female final student Fatmata Bah, a Broadcasting and Journalism (Bachelor of Arts), posted photos of her nostalgic experiences in 2020, the year they were denied access to the campus. “Stil on D Black Week Matter. D class that made History, “ she wrote on her Facebook page on Sunday.