Moral decay at universities on increase in Uganda

By Michael Woira

I have always exchanged with some of my friends about what is happening around universities in Uganda and my issues have always been advocating for discipline and morality at campus, though some of these university going students think they have to be rowdy, stubborn, riotous and defiant to the administration of their campuses.

This has been evident on several universities where students are always striking and doing all kinds of evil minding less about what took them to university, I don't always blame them because this is where some of them are finding this independent life where they are not staying with their parents and so this independence enables them do all kinds of things that they can't do while at home with their parents and these include spending most of their night life in bars, clubs and in several happening places and some girls end up staying with their boyfriends and some becoming prostitutes in the name of looking for upkeep.

But for today I will concentrate on some issue that has been trending on social media and that is the issue of "sex for marks". Let me first ask, Isn't everyone perturbed by the high level of sexual immorality in our universities? Don't blame it on the students' failure to heed to their parents' advice not to engage in premarital sex.

They would like to, but unfortunately, they can't. Blame it on the permissive and liberal environment in our campuses. The university set up provides a good pre-requisite for students to engage in unacceptable sexual activities. Though there are regulatory rules which allow male and female students to visit each other in the hostels, enforcement of such rules is not effective.

Not even such rules can bar these hot-blooded young men and lasses whose circulatory system is laden with oversupply of sex hormones from spending as much time as they want together. Even if it means skipping classes or even risking being suspended from the university, they can abide by it.

On joining campus, many Universities always teach their new students about the hierarchy of human needs where they get to learn that sex is a basic human need. This absolutely changes their perception of sex and sexuality. It dawns to them that by trying to abstain, they have only been punishing themselves by not fulfilling one of their basic human needs.

They even get perplexed by the fact that they've been advised so many times by their pastors and parents not to satisfy this very vital need before marriage. They curse their primary and secondary school teachers for having 'lied' to them that basic human needs comprise only food, clothing and shelter.

They choose to believe what their learned professor taught them: sex is a basic need, just like food and clothing and it goes without saying then that a basic need ought to be satisfied for one to survive. And from the way university students are getting laid, you'd be forgiven for thinking that their survival depends on it.

Now these young girls and boys start getting tempted to enjoy as much as they can because they are independent, I always walk past Mary Stuart hall at Makerere but every evening the hall becomes a happening place of sort with people in pairs and the parking filled to capacity and these are not cars that belong to the students but men who come for them and bring them back late in the night after happening and maybe satisfying each other's desires, these campus students don't mind because they know they will carry some stuff from the supermarket when coming back at the hostel, this is all not right.

I am basing my opinion mainly on these young university girls because I have observed several issues of immorality being done by these sisters of ours and it's the very reason when they discuss the issue of sex for marks its still girls that do so.

Let's not always think that its lecturers that ask for sex but I also think we should put in consideration the way these girls attach themselves to these lecturers, these girls are always having contacts of these lecturers and some of them even request them for outings and you think they have to be prophets in that they will be very holy not to react like men who are normal!!

For this current issue of some lecturer that has been in the news and allover social media with a student romancing in office, I will say this; I can't ascertain that this was a forceful act, I can't also believe this young girl was in the lecturers office for what she claims that she had come for and finally I believe this act was scripted by the girl and she finally acted it out to either harm the lecturer or make him suspended because of issues we may not know because right now everyone's attention is on the female and the male is not being availed chance to tell the world his side of the story.

All this is happening at universities on a daily basis because of the moral decay and bad upbringing of children at home or school and if we are to deal with this issue as a country, certain laws should be put in place to deal with people found in such acts of immorality at universities and both sides should always be punished accordingly without favour.

The writer is a Pan Africanist