UL students scramble for vehicles

Thousands of students at the State-owned University of Liberia FendellCampus experience daily scramble in a nightmare to board public transport, which are scarcely available to attend lectures and return home, leaving many being late for classes or falling in garbage filled mud in a game of survival of the strongest in the heavily congested commercial center of Red-light, Paynesville City.

The Fendell campus has a student population of more than 30,000 with barely few available buses being hired by the UL Administration to transport them to and from classes. As a result of torrential rains, the Paynesville Red-light commercial center has become very muddy, leaving students with no option but to stand in the excruciating stench to wait for commercial vehicles to transport them toFendell where the Government of the People’s Republic of China constructed a new campus for the university.

Since the start of regular academic programs on October 5, 2015, this has been a daily ordeal for students as the government-managed National Transit Authority provides only two of its fleet of buses to transport over 30,000 students.

The University of Liberia with a current operational budget of US$15 million, seems unable to provide additional buses to take students on campus, making learning very difficult at colleges that were relocated on the Fendell campus. Currently, there are all, but one undergraduate college (Business and Public Administration) on the UL Main campus on Capitol Hill in Monrovia.

Since October 5, some students have been finding it difficult to find their classes because some classrooms have conflicting schedules, wherein two classes are being assigned to a particular class at the same time.

Some of the classes are not conducive for learning as rain flashes on students, while sitting in class lectures.  The situation, if not addressed immediately, may cause many students enrolled for Academic 2015/2016 to be placed on probation due to poor class attendance or performance.

Additionally, a new registration procedure released by the UL Administration requires students to take their course planning papers commonly referred to as “pink sheet” to their respective departments for processing rather than do so themselves by directly going to EDP to have their papers processed for the semester as had been case.

But since the start of registration, students, who submitted their planning sheets more than a month ago, are yet to have them to make payment at the bank, while the administration is contemplating to end registration effective this week.

By Ethel A. Tweh