The students, having turned their backs on the internal regulations governing the secondary courses, confuse student life with laxity in terms of conduct to be followed. A situation which, given its magnitude, leaves no one indifferent to the high place of knowledge in Benin.
Student life at the University of Abomey-Calavi is akin to extraordinary freedom. If no pressure from the decanal authorities at each level imposes the strict conduct to be followed in their respective departments, the students they welcome extend this carelessness to a worrying level. At the University of Abomey-Calavi, it is easy to see students revel in lateness and absenteeism. Added to this is the lack of decency in the style of dress, the acts of vandalism shown by student members of certain institutions of a political or trade union nature, to name but a few. For them, university life is synonymous with licentiousness. This situation does not fail to attract the attention of other students who express their feelings. For Véronique “these students come to class as they see fit, which suggests that taking classes in the amphitheatres is optional”. In the same direction, Timothé agrees, “students come to class as they want without worrying regarding anything”. For Doctor Dénis Hodonou, Socio-anthropologist and researcher at the University of Abomey Calavi, “The way these students behave is no longer the same as when they were students. We are students here. And as we are used to saying, we are in higher education. And here in academia, parental control or teacher control doesn’t happen the same way.” He adds that for these students, it’s time to enjoy life without worrying regarding the inconveniences. For him, we become more free in the university world than in the school world.
“We have become more or less autonomous or responsible for given decisions regarding our private lives. We no longer have someone to tell us, here is what to do, here is how to behave in order to succeed in studies,” adds the educational psychologist. The specialist continues by confiding that “this freedom is a freedom of responsibility, of awareness and of one’s future in hand. If it is this freedom, then it is a beneficial freedom for the student”. According to him, one studies not only to succeed academically but also to become more responsible than ever and make decisions to better orient one’s life. “And that academic freedom is a human right that every person should enjoy. So it’s not a bad thing. No, it’s something that contributes to the development of human beings,” said the educational psychologist. Also he confides that they take prohibited substances because we think that it is now that we want to flourish or that is how we have the right to do what we did not do . He therefore suggests that “The ministers of the various levels of education and other structures which are in education or which are in the family or in the social sector must work together so that we do not see a rupture between the school world and the university world. In fact, we see that when young people leave college for university, they are sometimes out of their element and this state brings regarding a radical change in what they have learned until then, just as we would like to say now I I am a student and I am free to do what I want. It is therefore important that all the compartments of our society work in symbiosis, ”said the specialist.
Véran Meuris DANSOU (Stag)
