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FREETOWN: THOMAS KARGBO: A university is a place where young adults are socialised and moulded to make positive contributions to the development and progress of society. The better this task is performed by institutions of higher learning the more likely a nation will continue to establish itself on the international development agenda. Fourah Bay College is simply supposed to be performing the task of educating the young and aspiring citizens of this country, but has since transformed itself into one crucible for repression, corruption and retrogression perfectly niche in cultic secrecy. A University is a place where research and innovative ideas flourish not a place for glamorising the old ways. FBC has degenerated into nothingness and antiquity.

I went to FBC and came out with a distinguished degree but inwardly I have never been that proud of the rigours I went through at Mount Aureol, although when in the company of graduates from other local tertiary institutions, I tend to put up some aura of pride. Also when I meet foreign students especially from the sub-region I pretend to be proud of FBC given the fact that most of our counterparts in the sub-region held FBC in high regard; it being one of the oldest in West Africa. But is it possible for a distinguished alumnus to be less proud of the institution that made him a good and productive citizen? Yes this is possible and common with FBC where from the day of application to the award of degrees everything looks like hell on earth for the students.

I very much vividly and with disdain and no nostalgia remember how I almost missed an interview to FBC because I was expecting the authorities to post my interview invitation letter to my address upcountry. Yes, I was naïve but right to expect a letter in the post because “no application will be accepted without stamped return envelops addressed to the applicant”. This was what we were told on the application instructions. Even before being privileged to be invited for an interview, one first has to get used to the condescension and utter nonchalance and cavalier reception of the ordinary clerks at the registry.

As if they wanted to send a message that “you will not be welcomed on this mountain”. When finally I got an admission at this illustrious institution, it appeared in trying to register for my courses that I was in any “Bombay” market considering the confusion and disorganisation that surrounded the whole process. FBC is the only University where disorder thrives as a way of life. It is either that an exam timetable posted on the notice board was abruptly changed on the day of the exams or you are told on the final hour that your marks were wrongly calculated and cannot be changed.

The simplest problem at FBC is to secure a room which sometimes take half a semester. It is the easiest because it cannot be compared to the dilemma of not being liked by your lecturer because you went to a social function where he was present. It is a sin to be in the same social function as your lecturer according to the psychiatric bible worshipped by some of these lecturers. Actually, some of them won’t mind anyway, as long as you can afford to pass some few pints of stouts/Star beer/Heineken!!! Indeed FBC used to occupy an admirable place in education in Africa and beyond.

So many fine graduates have gone to Western Universities and international institutions and have left indelible footprints. This was not extraneous from what is now famously referred to as “standards” which the university maintained with military regimentation. But those standards have long changed around the world. Wait a minute, were they even what one should call “standards”? Is it “standard” that lecturers take pleasure in failing more students, when the country is badly in need of capacity? Is it “standard” that it took FBC ten years to produce a physics graduate? Is it “standard” that the best and most common result to law school is third class? Is it “standard” that lecturer absenteeism is normal? What is this vaunted “standard” they talk about when certain lecturers decide on day one that particular students will only come out with third class or division three because of their membership or affiliation to an opposite political camp? These are not the standards around the world when our counterparts in the sub-region are turning out first class graduates in modern academic disciplines in droves. This is not about maintaining a rotten and antiquated standard when our country just emerging from war is badly in need of graduates.

FBC is sinking into an abysmal caldron of nothingness. Since 1827 this institution has not been able to expand its programmes not to talk about awarding PhDs. The few attempts are still fighting for departmental recognition. In fact FBC genuinely cannot expand its programmes because it resents taking onboard competent staff with higher academic degrees. Its lecturer cadre is still replete with research assistants and master holders. The number of PhD holders and professors are still few and far between. The very simple argument the university authorities will tell any inquisitive journalist, is that we don’t have the sufficient funds to attract better qualified lecturers. This is just arrant incompetence and ineptitude! FBC is ruled by incompetent and grumpy old folks of yester years whose management skills are better suited to the days of Frederick Taylor. The authorities at FBC still wallow in colonial style authoritarian control rather than progressive administration.

FBC stinks and sucks. The lecture rooms and theatres are not conducive for learning as students often cram themselves around limited tables and chairs just to get the view of the blackboard. This coupled with the scotching heat of the sun and without proper ventilation classrooms become damp and pungent. Sanitation is also one major issue that the administration has never been able to handle properly. Just imagine students' hostels without adequate water supply. The consequence of this malady administrative incompetence and authoritarianism is the direct result of the graduation of hundreds of certified illiterates who mostly are incapable to write proper job application letters to employers. Obscurantism and thuggery have come to characterise the FBC student culture due to repressive measures to prevent refined political socialisation and democracy. At FBC the right to complain for students is absent. A political administrative strategy by the authorities meant to keep the students divided in serfdom so that the scoundrels and thieves who parade themselves as politicians downtown will enjoy peace in looting a hell poor country. This is elite conspiracy in its real sense.

To make the conspiracy a bit more brazen, the current Government had the tribalistic myopia to appoint a grammar-butcher and academic midget as education minister whose mere presence smacks of tribalism and ignorance. This is an insult to the already drowning academic community in the country. If the university is the face and hope of this country, then Sierra Leone is doomed.