The untold story of students’ life at Njala University – Struggle for accommodation (Part 2)

I’m a second-year student at Njala University. During my first year at the university, I experienced a lot of constraints and setbacks on-campus. It angers me when I found that some of the services that we are paying money for aren’t available to us. Basic necessities like; water supply, electricity, clean toilet facilities, comfortable lecture rooms, basic health care, and healthy foods are subpar. But that doesn’t make it right. I shall be sharing my experience about how life looks like for me on this campus for my family and government to know how the institution has been treating me and many others whiles I remain anonymous. Thanks to Salone Messenger for creating this category of the CAMPUS LIFE dedicated for students to be able to share their plights from the various universities. I feel we now have a voice

Njala University is a public university located in Sierra Leone. Established in the year 1964, it is one of the largest universities in the country and has the largest student population. (https://njala.edu.sl/) The University operates on two campuses – the Njala University in the Moyamba District, is the main campus, and the Bo campus located in Bo. Almost 99 percent of the students are from Freetown, Bo, Kenema, Makeni, Kailaihun, Kono, Tonkolili, and other districts.

This year, the university hostel fee went up to Le 750,000 from Le 600,000 for a double-room {i.e 2 per room} and up to Le 850,000 from Le 750,000 for a single-room. Before this, there were no improvements or rehabilitations made to these hostels. In fact, the situation keeps getting worse – some would say it’s critical.

Some dormitories didn’t have beds or foam mattresses. Others show a lot of damage inside such as damaged electrical sockets that have stopped working since I came here, broken windows, faulty lamp holders, and some doors didn’t have a proper lock. Most of these damages are required to be fixed by the University but are done by the students themselves. We’d hoped for refurbishment, but upon returning for 2019-2020 academic year, nothing like that has happened.

I know a lot of my colleagues that are victims of this. Since arriving in October, some students haven’t received foam to sleep on; instead, they sleep on a traditional dry bed made with bricks. How could the University increase the hostel fee without improving on the service? This has been a question that I’ve been asking.

The toilet facilities inside these hostels are miserable, and some are infectious. I live in one of the hostels, which most of the rooms in this hostel needs refurbishment and the toilet facility at this block is not one to write home about. Some bathrooms don’t have doors, while those that do aren’t strong enough to count.

Almost 70% of the students live in the community outside the campus many don’t have rooms at the hostels because there aren’t enough to go around.

I asked myself, ‘what are the University administrators doing with all the money and increments on hostels? Are they just playing blind and deaf?’ The staff that is responsible for cleaning the toilets sometimes don’t do it, because there isn’t enough water to do their work, or they aren’t paid enough.

My experience so far at Njala University hasn’t been a great one, but one full of depression, stress, and anxiety. Life at this campus isn’t on the right side for us. 99% of us here are suffering. There is more to share with you, more to write about, I shall be doing this once a while and hope you at Salone Messenger keep my name anonymous, for my degree amidst the situation here is so the pressure to me. Knowing fully well that my family, Government and people from across the world reading this, do something to make a change, if not for us, but for those after us not go through the same situation

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