Soche Technical College students riot over electricity

Irate students at Soche Technical College in Blantyre on Tuesday and Wednesday protested management’s failure to rectify an electricity problem at the hostels.
The students took to the streets and blocked the entrance to the college with stones and tree branches.

According to reports, the hostels have been without electricity since the opening of this year’s academic calendar on January 19 2017.

The students, through their representative body, claimed they approached the college management to sort out the problem, but to no avail.

Speaking in an interview on Wednesday, students’ union representative Mercy Kalupsya said they were on strike to force the management to reconnect electricity at the hostels.
“The strike is all about electricity. We opened school on January 19, but ever since we came here we have been living without electricity so we are doing this because we want the management to provide us electricity,” she said.

One of the students on the campus, Michael Juma, said lack of electricity has always been a problem at the hostels.

“The problem has been there since January. We have been telling the management, but nothing has been happening. Then on Tuesday night our friend got bitten by a snake, so we decided to take action,” he said.

Juma said the problem has mostly affected three hostels, one for girls and two for boys.

The college principal Avance Mulenda refused to comment, saying Ministry of Education, Science and Technology officials are better placed for that.

This is not the first time students have protested at the college. Last year, they also protested against poor hygiene conditions at the college. 