The university students live in the surrounding area, in a number of hostels (single bedroom apartments). Like the UK, they can be mixed sex, which doesn’t help. Hostels near the university can cost 1 million shillings, per semester (e.g. February – June), whereas apartments In Kireka can cost as little as 240,000 shillings. The students aren’t all rich, so every penny counts, so many choose to live 15 minutes walk in this very vulnerable area, in order to put food on the table and enable them to continue studying.
Students need to achieve a 1st or 2.1, to have any opportunity of finding a job.
Like the UK, most employer ask for a minimum of a 2.1, so opportunities become limited when you don’t achieve what you wanted. Here it makes it almost impossible.a higher percentage of girls manage to achive this grade, but unlike in the UK, it isn’t often down to their intellect, or how hard they work. Many students have to work alongside their studies, some work in bars or as cleaners, others who have capital and are smart setup small shops. Others fall to selling their body, to enable them to put food on the table, have a roof over their heads, and complete their studies, with a hope for better life ahead.
Working means they can’t put in the necessary hours into reading and studying, and they know without a good grade they will never get a job and reach the life they are hoping for. The start of term was delayed due to strikes by the staff. If you think you’re a teacher who’s badly paid in the UK or US, you should try working here.
So how do the girls perform better than the boys, if it isn’t down to their hard work and intellect? They do all they feel they can do, and they sleep with the teachers. Staff have multiple girl friends, and girls, who can study 11 course units in the first year, can have multiple teachers, depending on how badly they do in a unit area. The boys, sadly don’t get by their intellect alone either. Because teachers are so badly paid, it leaves them open to bribes, and just like sleeping with the teacher can get you from a 50% to a 70%, so can slipping them some money.
The university had around 40,000 students, each year around 5000 graduate, with approximately 20-25% of girls achieving a first or 2.1, and 10-15% of boys. In the first year they can take up to 11 course works (modules or subjects), as they progress, they specialise taking 6-7 course works in Y2, and in Y3 they take 4, which forms their specialism, and their final degree title. You can do the maths.
