The academic years of almost all public universities in Burkina Faso are experiencing delays for various reasons. And it is unfortunately not yesterday that this phenomenon began. What could these reasons be? What solutions to fix it? On August 23, 2023, we went to meet students from the Nazi Boni University to find out their view of this situation.
After the Baccalaureate, many students due to modest financial means are obliged to enroll in public universities. However, things are not progressing as planned, as these universities embrace the delays resulting in overlapping academic years. The license which is planned for three years, can go beyond. Several factors explain these delays or overlaps from the students’ point of view.
For Samira Traoré, student in Corporate Communication at UNB and enrolled in 2019, ” the delay is linked to the unavailability of professors, the clear desire of certain coordinators for the scheduling of courses, the plethoric number of students in promotions “. Therefore, she invites “the first leaders to ensure that students can have a normal year, that is from October to July and to review the system because these delays do not benefit them at all”, she urges.
As for Ali Bado, a student in Modern Literature at the same university, he thinks that the delays are linked, among other things, ” to the glaring lack of infrastructures in our universities which do not allow to program several promotions at the same time”. Also, he points out, the insufficiency of the teaching staff, which is one of the major causes, and the non-payment of teachers’ salary arrears. This means that they often refuse to come and give lessons and/or make homework notes available. This affects the deliberation of the different sessions. Similarly, the case of the dropout system plays negatively on the progress of promotions. Whether moderate or radical ».
Thus, Ali Bado asks the first heads of universities to really look into the question of infrastructure and also increase the recruitment of teachers. ” We have competent young PhD students who are unemployed. Why not allow them to put the acquired skills into action? This will avoid the expression (such teacher is not available) “, he suggests. Moreover, he invites them to think about the integration of online courses that would allow students to stay at home and follow the courses. With this method, I don’t think we’ll be talking about a lack of rooms to schedule promotions”.
Registered at UNB in the Department of Letters in 2020, Moublé Zingué just like Bado, indexes ” the inadequacy of the teaching staff despite the effort provided by the State, of the budget allocated to higher education and infrastructures to contain the number of students who enroll each year” as a major cause of delays or overlapping academic years. ” Repeated strikes that do not facilitate the smooth running of academic activities. The delay in the availability of homework copies. Difficult access to the internet connection for the integration of online courses » are among other causes that he mentions.
On the strength of this observation, Moublé Zingué recommends “ the operationalization of virtual universities to facilitate online courses, the improvement of living and study conditions to remedy the multiple strikes, the orientation of students in private universities which will help to decongest public ones”, to resolve the issue of delays. Furthermore, it invites directors to “build enough infrastructure in universities and teaching staff to make the effort to deliver copies on time”.
As a cause of academic delays, Issouf Coulibaly, a SVT student, underlines ” the unavailability of doctors, because some of them, under the pretext of being underpaid by the State, prefer private universities and the delay in the availability of grades; and the attitude of the students who sometimes refuse to compose without solid justification”.However, he recognizes the responsibility of the State which, according to him, does not recruit enough teaching staff, and it is not for lack of graduates.
Furthermore, like these predecessors, he makes a case of the lack of university infrastructure which leads to the overloading of rooms. “The more the classes are overloaded, the more the copies will come late. For example, the Biology Sciences sector commonly called People’s China”, he laments. For his part, he proposes the recruitment of teaching staff to fill the need in the various sectors and invites the administration to ensure strict compliance with the pre-established standards for the smooth running of the courses and to put an end to the debauchery of the students. ” We are way behind in our biological science track. We are from the class of 2019, and so far we have not yet completed the second year. We hope to do so next January.
It is true that the Covid has a share of responsibility, but the copies are also slow to correct. Often for lack of room, we delay doing the homework. It may happen that one composes a year after the administration of the course. The delay is also due to the lack of teachers. It happens that for modules, the administration tells us that teachers are not available. Sometimes one is tempted to wonder if this is not knowingly done by the administration. The proof is that the 2022 promotion is evolving and risks being ahead of us. Before the holidays, they finished both lessons and homework,” tells us a student in biological sciences. He suggests that “ the State has a look at the teachers recruited, because most of the time their absence is due either to the fact that they are outside or that they provide lessons in private schools. He would have to ensure that the latter first evacuate the timetables in the public before going elsewhere ”.
Reached by telephone in order to have an appointment to gather the point of view of the administration, the latter did not want to speak on the subject, especially since its president would be traveling at the time of our request.
Abdoul-Karim Etienne SANON
Edwige NH KAM/trainee
