By REBECCA MUSHOTA –
.UNZA
THE UNIVERSITY of Zambia (UNZA) management has said it has intensified its search for strategic partners in constructing student hostels as the institution prepares to establish campuses in all the provincial centres of the country.
UNZA registrar Sitali Wamundila said demand for education in Zambia was high, which had added pressure on the university to increase its accommodation capacity to take up high numbers of students seeking university education.
The university currently has more than 24,000 students and has a bed capacity of 3,500.
Mr Wamundila, who is leading a delegation of management staff from UNZA on a due diligence mission to South Africa, said the university intended to construct world-class accommodation for its students in a bid to improve the quality of education.
He said this at the Zambian Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, when the delegation paid a courtesy call on Zambia’s High Commissioner to that country Emmanuel Mwamba.
This is according to a statement issued by First Secretary for Press at the Zambian Embassy in South Africa Naomi Nyawali.
Mr Wamundila said the university had taken a proactive role in the expansion programme of its infrastructure, hence the need to engage in public-private partnerships.
He said enlisting private-public partnerships was cardinal for the university as it embarked on the expansion programme in all the provincial centres across the country.
Mr Mwamba said the private sector should take advantage of the initiatives to construct student hostels as the idea was commercially viable.
He said universities in Zambia should not wait on Government to construct student accommodation as it may delay to do so but engage the private sector.
Mr Mwamba urged the delegation to accurately study how the private sector in South Africa had successfully managed to partner with universities in offering affordable student accommodation.
The Ministry of Higher Education has prolonged the closure of UNZA so that management could find ways to deal with the squatting problem which has led to overpopulation in the hostels.
Students have resorted to squatting because of a lack of sufficient accommodation, but the problem poses a threat of disease outbreaks because of poor sanitation resulting from over population.
