Ending sex for marks tall order for varsities

By Okodan Akwap

Makerere University vice-chancellor, Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe, has warned lecturers against the "sex for marks" vice at the institution, so says a story in Sunday Vision of January 21.

Nawangwe is quoted as saying: "I want to warn those who are engaged in the evil vice to stop."

Great! But if Nawangwe is simply focusing on lecturers then he's not getting the complexity of the sex-for-marks story.

I taught at Kampala International University for 11 years (2006-2017). I also served as a head of department and an acting deputy director of academic affairs in charge of examinations. For almost all that time, I was made to believe, as Nawangwe probably believes now, that male lecturers are the problem, the sexual predators on the prowl.

But during my last semester at KIU (January-June 2017), I unexpectedly acquired knowledge that radically altered my perspective of sexual harassment in our universities.

I had taught investigative journalism for three years. As a retired journalist, I always favoured practice over theory. My students investigated wrongdoing where they lived, worked or hailed from. But KIU was off-limits. 

Now, wearied by recurring complaints from students about no money for transport, not enough time to complete fieldwork and suspicions from sources that didn't know or trust them, I grudgingly allowed the last lot to "investigate an aspect of wrongdoing at KIU."

That is when my eyes were opened to a seedy world of sexual harassment, substance abuse, drug dealing, prostitution, lesbianism, exam malpractices, etc, that lurked ominously behind "innocent" faces of some of our students. Tales of sexual harassment were particularly alarming.

One of my trainee journalists wrote: "Whenever soliciting for sex at the university is mentioned, what quickly comes to mind is lecturers wanting or even demanding sexual favours from their students. At all public and private universities in the country, there have always been reports of students complaining about their lecturers demanding sex from them in exchange for academic favours. There is, however, another side to this story - the story of students offering and pleading to give the lecturers ‘anything they want' so as not to re-sit an exam, test or coursework."

Here is the plan: "Way before the semester begins, female students find out what lecturer will be teaching which course unit. Once they have acquired this information, they weigh their options and make decisions accordingly. They will know who is a no-nonsense lecturer that they will not bother with their crafty schemes. They will go for that one they suspect can easily succumb to their appetising offers."

Other reports on the matter showed that the evening programmes, with classes starting after 5:00pm and ending around 10:00pm, make lecturers even more vulnerable to sexual harassment from female students.

One male source explained: "At the end of the lecture, they surround you outside the lecture room. Others will find you in your office. Some will have even called you before the lecture to inquire whether you will be coming to teach or not."

If you think the problem is with female students, think again. Male students also sexually harass female lecturers. But what we are not hearing are complaints from lecturers. That is why Prof Nawangwe needs to proceed with caution. He must first of all understand what sexual harassment entails.

Sexual harassment includes unwanted pressure for sex or dates, unwanted touching or pinching, unwanted sexual looks or gestures, unwanted phone calls, emails or text messages of a sexual nature, sexual comments about a person's clothing or looks, telling lies or spreading rumours about a person's sex life, looking people up and down or winking, etc.

Now, who's innocent? We need to tackle this problem from the policy level. The National Council for Higher Education should develop broad policy guidelines, which all universities and other tertiary institutions must use to come up with individual sexual relations policies.

The writer is the dean of faculty of social sciences and management studies at Kumi University