VICTIMISATION AT UNISWA REAL

Sir,

An article published on May 5, 2017 titled ‘UNISWA students push, overturn lecturer’s car’ stirred some painful memories of my time as a student at UNISWA. Firstly, I would like to congratulate the students for their brave act of standing up to a bully disguised as an academic, however, I don’t condone violence of any nature, but with the predicament they were in - anyone can understand. In my four years at UNISWA I was pursuing a BSc Degree majoring in Biochem. Along with other students, I suffered severe victimisation at the hands of a certain female lecturer in the department.

Students were subjected to extreme verbal and emotional abuse at the hands of this woman. She is infamous for failing students unnecessarily, and verbally abusing them, especially females by body shaming them at every chance she gets. I recall one incident where one of my fellow students, after giving a splendid presentation in front of the class and this lecturer. We were all left astonished by her unpalatable comments afterwards. The student’s name, I’ll say was *Thandi. “Thandi thank you for managing to drag yourself in front of us to bore us to death, were you of the impression that this was a funeral? Because you were so adamant on boring us,” the lecturer said. Feedback is always appreciated after presentations but it should be delivered in such a way that it is positive criticism and not degrading statements. I recall one time after a presentation I made she said to me; “Thank you for wasting our time Miss *Dludlu, clearly you have no clue what you are talking about and I think you better start saving money to repeat next year.” Other students and I were rushing to class one morning because she would sometimes lock us out of class if we were late. She started body shaming my other colleague by saying; “Ugijima wentani wena LaSithole uphoku lengisa inyanza yeti bunu la.” The student was extremely embarrassed and was left feeling insecure and ashamed.

It is my plea that a platform be created where students can report such occurrences without again being either ignored or victimised further. Many students have suffered and still suffer in silence in the hands of lecturers who bully them. The bullying escalates to the point where students are failed by lecturers simply because that lecturer doesn’t ‘like’ them. Victimisation at UNISWA is real and the administration should take the necessary action to bring these bullies to order.
 
Bullied victim

Note: This letter was emailed to the UNISWA administration on May 15, 2017 to afford them the right to reply. And when a follow-up call was made, the following day, they promised to look at the letter and reply; however, this has not happened even after numerous follow-up calls.
Ed.

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