‘Revisit Chanco funding’

Chancellor College will tomorrow celebrate its 40th anniversary. Where is the college coming from? Where is it now? And where is it going? Professor Paul Kishindo was a student in the college’s formative years and, until his retirement last year, he was teaching there. He talks with EPHRAIM NYONDO.

 Q: You were Chanco’s first year student in 1971 at its Chichiri Campus in Blantyre and you were also among the group of students that migrated with the college to its Chirunga Campus in Zomba. What was it like to be a Chanco student then?

A:

[Laughs]…In the first place, it wasn’t easy to make it to college then. So, the mere fact that you had been selected, gave you a feeling of a conqueror. Equally satisfying was the way the State managed universities then. Government made sure that the college was well-funded. The cafeteria served meals of hotel standards. The library was well-stocked. Every department was headed by a professor, and it was a policy, again, that first years should be taught, mostly, by professors. We could receive a monthly allowance to buy clothes, you know Dr Banda was a man of class; he made sure a university student looked decent. And most importantly, discipline and maturity was the order of our times. In a nutshell, being a Chanco student then was quite interesting because you were exposed to a special life that augured well with demands of excelling as a university student. To belong to Chanco meant you belonged to the best!

Q:

It appears you studied at Chanco during its golden years.

A:

I can say so. There was quality in the products of Chancellor College. Banda hated producing what he consistently termed ‘half-baked’ graduates. However, it is important to underline that the quality in question came at the expense of freedoms. There was a heavy hand of the State at the college. A lot of students could be detained. For instance, we experienced first student detentions of Modecai Msisha and Alick Mponda right at the Chichiri Campus. Even doing research was problematic. Areas to be researched, especially in the social sciences, had to be critically looked into by the State. So, despite the availability of resources to research, the freedom of inquiry was heavily thwarted. You had informers everywhere.

Q:

You retired last year after 35 years of teaching sociology at Chancellor College. How do you compare your generation of Chanco students with the current one?

A:

In our generation, Chanco was filled with students who were in their late teens and early twenties. This means we came to college matured, not always looking up to our parents for everything. Beyond that, there was again great expectation in us from our parents and families back home. We were carrying the hope of our families. That instilled values of hard work and discipline in us.

I am seeing a little of that in the current crop of students—especially the post democracy students. We have very young students who still depend on their parents to provide all their needs. Nobody expects much from them because most of their relations have been to college before. What lacks in these students is a sense of hard work and discipline. They don’t value education [as much as we did] and they hardly appreciate the golden opportunity of studying at Chanco because if they get weeded they know their parents will send them somewhere else to study. I think parents—I am happy I am also a parent—need to step up. We are destroying our nation.

Q:

Chanco will be celebrating its 40th anniversary tomorrow while the college is in indefinite closure following disagreements between government and students over allowances. These things were absent in your times. Why are they common these days?

A:

First, the obvious response is the change of government. Students’ strikes were not allowed during the dictatorship. Beyond that, we need to understand that the college was well-funded during our time, especially because the intake was low. All these have changed now. Democracy has given human rights to students. We have cases where students abscond from classes and when they fail they get injunctions. My worst fear is that we are witnessing a wave of students who are parting ways with the responsibilities expected of them.

Q:

You have lectured at the college for 35 years. What do you consider to be the college’s critical challenge and how can it be addressed?

A:

I consider funding as the college’s critical challenge. The college has expanded, which is good, and it is providing education to many. But we need to revisit how we fund it. I think with subsidies in almost all the critical sectors of the society, it is delusional to still be looking entirely to government for funding. It is not possible. I propose two things. One, we need to make parents who can pay, and there are many, pay for their children. Why should we continue paying for students who come to college driving expensive cars? If we cannot do that, then let us go correspondence. With the advent of the Internet, let us have a few students on campus and the rest be studying from their homes through internet correspondence.

Q:

If Chanco remains in the state it is today, how do you envision it in, say, 20 years to come?

A:

I see a Chancellor College I don’t want to be a part of. So much mediocrity happening. There is complete shortage of discipline, values of education and funding in the college. Surely, at the rate it is degrading, Chancellor College will cease to be a university. It will be just one of those glorified high schools.