Marginalised students cry foul

By Tracy Tafirenyika

SEVERAL marginalised students from various tertiary institutions who fall under the special fund of the Vice President’s marginalised division have been forced to abort   school after government neglected their plight.

The fund takes care of some 280 students from disadvantaged families.

The students said they had written several letters to the Executive Director of Gender Esther Lusepani to get clarity on why the tuition has not been paid but that has ended in a futile exercise.

The aggrieved group of students said only a few students received payments for four months during September and the rest are still unpaid for the past 10 months.

Two of the students who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed their sorry state of affairs to Confidente.

“Not everybody has been paid yet … they are only acting now when students have started to call Venaani and other people to help us that is when they started paying a few students and some are still left out.

“They did not provide anything to the students even internet gadgets to help the students, now most of them have dropped out of school and most of them went back to their villages and the payment is only happening now to some students whilst the year is already ending. International University of Management (IUM) has also refused to help these students that are not paid yet so they can write their examinations,” said one student. 

Another student said, “We have been sending documents ever since but still we were not paid anything and we have been struggling. Some students are suicidal due to the suffering caused by the office. Students only depend on the office for their financial needs and some students need to return to school for exams.

“We are tired of being mishandled under the name of marginalised (sic). We are starving while people that were entrusted to assist us are happily living their lives. The office should tell us if they are not able to cater for us so we know. Now that we have called for the attention of everybody that is when they are trying to blame the students. ”

Meanwhile Lusepani has denied the allegations saying that all of these students had been paid already.

“We have paid all of the kids last week and only the ones that have not been paid are the ones that did not get their documents in order or those ones that did not send their full information for the documents, those ones are the only few students that are still pending,” she said.

A document seen by Confidente shows that at least 25 marginalised students are yet to receive their payments even though some completed the required procedures.