It also wants the job to be carried out quickly, the compulsory site inspection being, according to its advert, on the 24th and the submission dead line, a mere six days later, on March 1st. Remarkably little information about this College, now University, has been made available since the Land Board, perhaps five years ago, acquired the old tshimo on which the College is now located. In this respect it probably shares similar characteristics with other major project initiatives which have been planned elsewhere and planted in relatively small rural communities.
Probably BIUST Palapye is a major example. But there will be others - the Police College and Moeding College in Otse coming quickly to mind. None of those projects developed organically from within the community itself and may have struggled, should that have been their wish, to establish genuine bonding with them. If there is to be bonding, it has to come in the early stages of such projects when the local communities are encouraged to put their questions, obtain answers and express their concerns. If this early stage is allowed to pass without meaningful local involvement, it becomes harder and harder for the authorities responsible for the project to find, should they so wish, even a small role which that community could play. And when it is eventually found, it can prove to be little more than a sop, a far-too-late-in-the-day gesture which is both meaningless and patronising. In the case of the Oodi College, it is probable that the fundamentals of its daily life and activities will be carried out in isolation from its surrounding community. The role of Oodi, Modipane and Matabele will, therefore, be limited to providing accommodation, a few lower level employees and garnering small pickings around the edges. Late in the day as it may be, it may still be worth thinking about some of the issues involved which, I suggest, could and should have been spelt out by the MP, probably in a leaflet, when work began on building the College. This leaflet could have explained what the MP envisaged would be the College's impact on the three villages, both positive and negative, and described some of the wider issues that he felt would be involved. But there was no such leaflet.
