AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ADMINISTRATORS OF NAROK UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

Dear sirs/madams

I sincerely hope this finds you well in good state of mind, health and in every other way. This is not a love letter so enough of pleasantries and small talk, so I will move straight to the main points of addressing this letter to you.

I want to know if you really are aware of the state of things in this university college have noted with a lot of concern that what is happening around is just but a very organized scheme of confusion:starting from the way various schools are run, the way the time table is set, the way information flows from top(administration) to bottom(students) and vice versa, the way the state of the library and general state of things.

I will start with ACADEMICS. Good sirs, I loudly wonder, since when did a course move from one to school to another school as easy as the way it happens in Narok university? You see, the students in journalism, communication and public relations class have moved to a record breaking three schools in a span of one academic year. There admission letter says that they had been admitted in the school of information science but alas! On arriving here they were shifted to school of business and human resource development. As if that was not enough, they are now in school of education and social arts. They don’t know which the next school they are going to be is and so kindly let them know so that they are adequately prepared to move.

Taking a walk through the library which has of late become an academic desert due to lack of books one can’t help but sympathize with the situation in there. It has become one large room where it is convenient for one to go and study because there are soft chairs and conducive environment for one to study without disturbance of the noises outside and not because it’s an academic power house as one may think it is. There is less than five books on communication and less than two on journalism,they were there last semester and now they can’t be found, can someone over there give a pretty water-tight explanation and yes to answer your question, this is a student who is taking journalism and hence his interest in communication books, and general welfare of students in general, I read from a book(its non in our library,!)that journalists are also known us public watch dogs!!

Sirs, journalism  requires some practical lessons. lot of equipments are required especially in the context of job market competition in a world that is crazy about going digital, don’t you think that it’s a shame that a student in 3^rd year has never operated a camera yet they are taking journalism, and I’m not talking about using a camcorder or teleprompters and video editions or how to write for the online audience! It’s a shame that students taking a certificate in radio and TV production  in a city back street college can beat a 3^rd year bachelors degree from this university in this college hands down in the most basic things and were I an employer you make a guess whether I will go for the papers or skills.

I would love to know how we have managed to stay without internet for the last 3 weeks since we opened,I thought  access to information is a global human need.?all the other public universities have free wireless  internet apart from our college,nay,our university! Explain how two computers are able to serve a population of 3,000 students in the library and tell me about computer lab like I suspect you are about to because the room is ever in use with computer science students using the few virus infected computers all the time. And oh yes, one dean over there in school of science has a thing for students going there and you are not taking a science oriented subject which leaves me foaming on the mouth like a bull and fills me with desire to give him a lecture on uses of internet, and even a thousand and two reasons why face book which he  vehemently curses those that try to access it from there, can assist students carry out  good connections and links with professionals and future employers.Otherwise,why would we have various people, considered to be top in the world, including Barrack Obama(who my lakeside roommate swears is a great grand cousin from his father’s clan!)create a face book account.?We need free wireless internet from the cow sheds beyond Serengeti all the way down to the fence on the field and down to kamoja kamoja.

It’s so painful to deposit fees in the school account and up to now, we don’t know or have not seen some lecturers in some classes. All this  is because some are taking advantage of the chaos and confusion entrenched on the timetable, shameful to say by the timetabling committee. Why is it that they have never gotten it right? The classes are always on the wrong rooms, can you pin-point to me where room 22 is? Surely..From now henceforth we want to be furnished with details of the timetable online. Or what is the work of the I.T team wonder when we will stop queuing like in the KANU era pay school fees and book hostels.

I hope you have noticed with a lot of (un)concern that the population of the university is really surging forward and its just but a matter of time before it explodes. As a journalist-trainee, I know research is important and I have done my research and confirmed that on January there will be more students joining us have unconfirmed reports that the second years are to take another long holiday in January to create space for the oncoming students which would not go down well with them because they would like to clear from this place as quick as possible and move on with the life elsewhere to serve the public. Is it true that after just 3 months of reading and also idling around the first years have gone for the long holiday?

Currently, It takes around 45 to 1 hr of queuing to get served in the mess, and mark you not all students eat in the mess for now because those with classes opt to go and eat(expensive, unhealthy food) outside rather than queue in the mess. One (slow)person serving over 1,500 students is not a realistic way of doing things, even with my slow wit in maths,it tells me that something does not add up,right?so how are you prepared for the explosion in population that is to come up in January and closer still how will it be like over exam time? How will the library serve us thought that an institution like this should grow(work-force,technologically,infrustrucure-wise) with the growth in population?

To avoid any inconveniences’ in future, how about we be issued with full year academic calendar in advance so that we just don’t wake up one morning and hurray! We have a function. And be given advances notices in future, and please correct me because I stand to think that the ploy at the library, that one cannot get a book without the plastic i.d card is a plot to lock majority from borrowing books and realizing that there are no books because majority who lost the i.d and paid for new ones are yet to be issues with them and so they can never borrow books from the lib,so are they not part of us?

I have also in my many random  wonder thoughts as I wander around the compound(with no lectures to attend and not by my choosing)asked myself what the identity of our university is,?K.U is blue,MOI main is green,UON,is light blue, what is the color of NUC?,we don’t have a flag to identify with,the gate is a whole different color to the theme of our adverts in the newspapers, our website(sic)all it tries to say is that we are next to maasai mara,and by the way, who made that website?hehe,reminds me of the professional joker who made the Toyota vitz car, which I’m sure none of you rides in such a car.

But nevertheless good sirs, don’t get me wrong, I love this place dearly,infact I’m in love with this university ambience and the surrounding fauna and flora..Including fionas,faiths fridahs and friends, but I’m afraid that’s not what brought me here!!i mean we have some things that we can say are proud of, including the warm and occasionary hot showers, the roofed pavements, the well,anthing else? The friendly and helpful dean of students maybe,but we did not come here for hot showers and by the way I think that what heats the water is natural solar otherwise were it human, it would have suffered the fate of the suswa T,V rooms socket fate,has the electrician seen it? And what’s happening to the lights in Serengeti?on a certain night a few days ago, in a few rooms, an electric fault caused untold loss to peoples computers and it passed like that, and supposing it started fire? we would now be mourning and saying what good young men they were,..and let me stop there because the thought makes me wanna shed a tear. And where has the fire extinguishers gone to? What have you put in place as a emergency exit plan incase of anything in those hostels, how safe are they with the grilled windows hope the new hostels designers had a plan on that one because anything can happen.

Thank you for taking you a lot of free time to read this,

For now, ponder on those few queries as the judge breaks for the lunch, and  student leaders(the Student Governing Council), stop sighing sighs of relieve, you are the next on the docks of this fire court!!

           YOU ARE FREE TO LEAVE THE COURT FOR LUNCH BREAK!!!