Some faculties and institutes of the University of Burundi are facing a crying lack of audiences. Students may return without having taken the scheduled courses. Students from the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences (FLSH) deplore the lack of audiences, which has consequences for academic work. “It’s difficult to have access to an audience. A student,
Some faculties and institutes of the University of Burundi are facing a crying lack of audiences. Students may return without having taken the scheduled courses.
Students from the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences (FLSH) deplore the lack of audiences, which has consequences for academic work. “It’s difficult to have access to an audience. A student, especially the class representative, must wake up either at 4 or 5 am to be the first occupant of the audience. Whoever arrives late, his class does not study. The audiences are insufficient whereas the students are numerous”, testifies a student of the department of geography.
Sometimes they return without having had the opportunity to follow the lessons: “If the students occupy an audience and their teacher is late, a teacher who arrives early makes them leave to occupy the room with the others”.
These students explain that sometimes professors choose to teach under the tree or in their offices. The students place benches under the trees and the professor gives his lesson. If they can enter a small room, an office for example, the professor will give his lesson there.
“The lack of audiences pushes FLSH students to look for rooms in the Faculty of Economics and Management”.
But the latter is also affected by the lack of audiences. “Sometimes, graduates miss classes due to overcrowding,” said a Master 1 student in economics.
Same story at Campus Rohero. After the catering at the university was abolished, the dining room was transformed into an auditorium. Students from the Institute of Applied Pedagogy (IPA), bac 3 English department take classes in the said room.
“It becomes difficult when it comes to taking an exam or learning a common course. The rooms become very small and cannot accommodate all the students who have to look for a large room. Those who were accustomed to studying in this audience must leave it and may miss another who has the capacity to welcome them, in which case they return”.
One of the students believes that the situation has worsened following the opening of new cycles: “The university continues to create new bachelor’s and master’s programs without taking into account the availability of classrooms”. Thus, the FLSH has 7 baccalaureate departments, 5 Master’s programs and a multitude of courses, while audiences remain insufficient.
The students call on the university authorities to build more other audiences.
Recall that during the States General of Education from June 14 to 16, various speakers raised the issue of the dilapidated state of the auditoriums as one of the challenges that haunt the University of Burundi.