Tragedy of shattered university dreams
They become instant heroes when KCSE results are announced. But a year into university, their brilliant minds get addled by crime, drugs, alcohol and sex. EVELYNE NJERU reports
When KCSE results were announced and *Joseph Njuki’s name was featured in newspapers as a top student, he was crowned the village hero.
He joined a local university to pursue an engineering course to the immense pride of his parents. Things went smoothly till he became a second year student.
The village hero drifted into the wrong crowd and started boozing heavily. He’d be spotted occasionally in the wee hours of the morning lying spread-eagled in the gutter. Inevitably, his performance dipped and after a few warnings, he dropped out of university because of ‘frustrations’.
Today, he rears chicken and is a joint owner of a small pub in Murang’a County.
His story is that of many university students who start with great promise, only to consign their dreams to the dustbin. Ask sober university students and they will confess that it takes tough luck for one to graduate.
Caroline Nkirote*, a 23-year-old mother of two, had a rough time when she joined university a few years ago.
“Life was tough. Coming from a peasant family, I had a hard time dividing my loan between tuition fees and campus life,” she says.
Although she managed to drift through for two years, the third year became tricky. She dropped out when life pushed her into squeezing money from her boyfriend to supplement her meagere resources.
“I had exchanged sexual favours with money for upkeep for too long. Although he was my boyfriend, I started feeling like a prostitute and just dropped out to be his wife,” she says.
According to a senior lecturer at Moi University’s Kabianga campus, graduating is not a joke. In his view, many are the students who drop out or are expelled because of indiscipline.
“Throughout the academic year, most disciplinary councils are always busy handling all manner of disciplinary cases. Many are the students whose enrolment is permanently terminated,” adds the lecturer.
For instance, although villagers think Christine Ocol* is extending her vacation, truth is she will never join any other university in the universe. Ill luck befell her when she was caught severally with a mwakenya (written notes) in the examination room.
“It was a grave mistake. I had been caught twice. I knew the third time I’d be expelled. It is so heart wrenching that I cannot join any higher learning institution,” she regrets.
Moses Kithaka* is also a victim. He was caught sitting an examination on behalf of a junior student.
“The disciplinary council called it a grave offence. Although I had done it because I was utterly broke, I still regret because I was not paid a cent by the student I was sitting the paper for,” he recalls.
Other students take indiscipline to criminal heights, say, by engaging in risky businesses like drug trafficking for a quick dime. In 2008, for instance, a University of Nairobi student described as brilliant was sentenced to life imprisonment in China for trafficking in heroin.
Another student was lucky to be repatriated back home for sentencing, but her plight is minor compared to students who have lost their lives to the narcotics trade. Some are even not discovered until their families launch private investigations.
“What drives students to live well beyond their means is peer influence. Most times, students find themselves living with other others from different backgrounds,” says a local university lecturer.
Some students who are easily swayed are the ones who go to extremes and either flunk in their studies or veer to the wrong side of the law, he adds.
Rose, for instance, had no idea her roommate was a seasoned robber. She only found out when her roommate requested her to transport precious jewellery for a fee.
But the deal turned sour when detectives traced her fingerprints to her room and placed her under arrest. Apparently, the jewellery had been stolen in a robbery-with-violence incident a few days earlier. Rose and her roommate are now eating cold gruel in a maximum prison.
Keen readers will also recall the case that shook the country when detectives traced a cache of arms to a University of Nairobi student’s room. The young man, an engineering student then, was arrested and charged with armed robbery. Barring parole, he will spend the rest of his life in jail.
Henry Mbogo*, an ex university student, is also paying the price for messing up with the wrong company. He found himself in a tight spot when he was implicated in a robbery incident involving a lecturer. Due to the senior lecturer’s influence, Henry and his two accomplices were fined and suspended for two academic years.
Due to shame and derision from relatives, he is rumoured to be either burning charcoal somewhere in Mwanza or hawking around Arusha town.
Other students squander fees. Although now a renowned businessman in Meru County, very few know how Michael Mwendani* started his business. Michael studied medicine for one year before he dropped out. Meanwhile, he continued to siphon fees from his unsuspecting parents.
A bright spark of sorts, he used the money to start up an electronics shop and only owned up when his parents contacted him about his ‘impending graduation’.
To some students, universities are another version of paid vacations. Thanks to parental grants and government loans, they waste the entire semester sleeping, fornicating, drinking and watching blockbuster movies.
James is a good example. The second year Law student will rarely be seen in lecture halls. But late in the evenings and on weekends, he will be spotted in exclusive drinking joints in the company of gorgeous female students. Rumour has it that he has relatives in USA who spoil him with dollars whenever he whines he is broke.
Blame it on protective parenting. When some students get out of their ‘caged’ lives, they practically go wild. Free grants coupled with the freedom that comes with college life and the allure of alcohol drive them into the kind of lifestyle they had been denied access to by their parents.
Take an example of Isabella, a second year communication student at Daystar University. The now unofficial mistress and a mother of one confides she was a virgin when she set foot at university.
However, things changed when she started to party hard with new friends at campus.
“It was at these parties that I got involved with a man who was irresistibly cute and rich. Before I knew what was happening, I had conceived.
“I dropped out of college thinking he loved me, but it didn’t take long for me to realise I was just another mistress,” she confides with teary eyes.
Some students join university with the mentality that these institutions are holiday camps. These are the ones who end up wasting their lives by courting their own destruction, says a student leader we interviewed for this story and who asked not to be named.
“Alcohol and drug abuse are a student’s worst nightmares and most students will either pick these habits from peers or report in first year when they are already addicted,” he says.
But misfortunes related with poor judgment have nothing to do with tender age. Joseph Tergat*, 35, had hoped to get a social sciences degree to qualify for a job upgrade. But things got tough when he attempted to bribe a senior lecturer for good grades. Predictably, the born-again don filed a cheating report that fried Tergat.
He is still a poorly paid public servant. He joins the ranks of many students whose stars shone when they enrolled at university, the tragically dimmed, sometimes permanently, when they quit in ignominious circumstances.
—Disclaimer: The names of people mentioned in this story have been changed.
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