Denial of education on political grounds wrong

EDITOR – The Zimbabwe National Students Union (Zinasu) condemns the University of Zimbabwe’s refusal to re-admit Solomon Madzore, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) Youth Assembly, into the institution to continue his studies. 

Zinasu views this move by the UZ as clear persecution of the youth leader because of his political affiliation and fears that it is a well-premeditated move aimed at denying Madzore his right to education guaranteed by article 26 of the Universal declaration of Human Rights and many other international conventions.

Reasons given by the UZ for denying Madzore re-admittance have to do with his involvement in a murder trial that is still to be concluded.

Without commenting on cases that are sub-judice, suffice to say that Madzore is still innocent until proven guilty and should thus enjoy all his rights including the right to education.

If the UZ in its true tyrannical fashion decides to arbitrarily deny Madzore his right to education until his case is finalised, will they be able to give him back the time he will have lost if the courts eventually find him innocent at the conclusion of his trial?

As noted earlier, denying Madzore re-admittance into the institution could be a well calculated move that can be broken into the following interlinked chronological events:

Firstly, giving reasons of his involvement in an ongoing murder trial, the UZ refuses to re-admit Madzore into the institution as they have already done, secondly, the murder trial stretches on for months to come, possibly years as has been the case with many politically sensitive trials such as that of Munyaradzi Gwisai and six others to mention just but a few, lastly, when the trial comes to a conclusion, if Madzore is found innocent and seeks re-admittance into the institution, the UZ adds up the years he was in detention and the years the murder trial continued after he was released on bail in order to time him out (the institution times a student out after he/she has been at the institution for double the years his/her programme is normally supposed to take).

What this means is Madzore will have to start the programme again if he still wishes to do the same programme with the same institution. Zinasu sees through the UZ’s hidden machinations against the youth leader and offers him solidarity in his endeavours to gain re-admittance into the UZ through the courts.

It is shameful that a country which has a youth policy that encourages the participation of youths in politics allows public tertiary institutions, which are under the control of the State to victimise youths and student leaders who actively participate in the latter.

Zinasu Information Department