College students want liquor store
Keikantse Lesemela | Monday August 18, 2014 15:59
Addressing a general meeting of the student community last week, the Student Representative Council (SRC) president, Godiraone Samuel said they want the school to be transformed to meet its community’s needs. Currently the College is going through a period of transformation with a vision of becoming an agricultural university of international repute. “We want this school to review its system and understand that the students need entertainment in school premises because they are travelling long distances to reach entertainment places and this puts their lives at risk,” said Samuel.
He said currently they are operating a bar on weekends, which is temporarily licensed so they are pleading for a permanent one. Operating a bar would also be a source of funds to the student’s body, he said. “We are looking for ways in which we can fund the student’s affairs as we don’t want to always ask donations but we should be independent as students representative council,” the SRC president said.
“We want to see students’ needs being met. Unfortunately school management have not managed to be with us in this meeting as they are busy with the processes of transforming the school into the university,” said Samuel.
Samuel said SRC would push for book allowances to be credited into students’ accounts so that they can have an option of buying books in cheaper shops.
“The book allowance issue is a burning issue in all the institutions so we as BCA students we want to address it in a peaceful demonstration, we don’t want to cause chaos in school,” he said.
He pointed out that catering in school is one of the major problems, and thus requested the Department of Tertiary Education Financing (DTEF) to find alternative route. “Catering in a school is a challenge because if you miss the time of meals there is no how you can have it again.
So we want to be given allowance like UB students where they have an option of buying food whenever they want. We want to have an independent catering company, which will cater for us not the school system,” he said.
Also on the cards, said Samuel is for the school be transformed to enforce a change of mindset on students to understand that after graduating they should not only see employment as an alternative but they should have the spirit of entrepreneurship.
The transformation exercise is intended to make BCA an institution of choice in the region for training in agriculture. The college emphasises innovation in teaching methods and research.
Recently the college expanded its teaching facilities, ICT infrastructure, student accommodation, and acquired state of the art research equipment in order to ensure the quality of the programmes offered as well as increase access to education.