By Lerato Ndlovu
Local tertiary students have found themselves stuck at their learning institutions with no transport to return to their home towns.
This follows the government directive to close all teacher’s colleges, polytechnics and industrial training colleges with immediate effect after a surge in confirmed Covid-19 cases.
To date 2 296 Covid-19 confirmed cases have been recorded locally with 1 750 active cases.
In interviews with Bustop TV students said they have been forced to travel back home at a time when intercity travel is banned because their schools cannot cater for them.
“The authorities are telling us that they have tried their best to talk to ZUPCO to ferry us back to our home towns as they did when they wanted we opened during this lockdown, though they sound unsure of their words now we are stranded because of the new measures put in place by the government like the 6pm curfew.
“Accessing transport has been a big burden not for us students alone but everyone in the country, in our situation we do not know what to do now because we are told to vacate the premises and go home, we are left stranded on the roads making it a big cause of concern, worse with the girl child having to do anything so that she can go home we are scared of a rise in abuse on the roads,” one said.
Another said they had asked the institutions to provide transport but this was to no avail.
“We have asked the institutions to provide their buses to ferry the students us who live in far cities but we were told there are buses,” he said.
ZICOSU President Pijiwest Nhamburo said the union is trying its best with and without the aid of the institutions authorities to make sure that all the students return home safely.
“As ZICOSU we have heard so many concerns and grievances from our stakeholders at the different institutions who have been affected by the lockdown measures by His Excellency and the subsequent orders by our responsible Ministry which saw a number of students being affected.
“As a Union we have written to Zupco to try and chip in and a number have been assisted, we have also liased with some institutions to assist our students to move from point A to point B and we still on it, as we can hear that some students are still stranded in some places, we are trying to ensure that they are safe.
“We are also urging others in the same situation who haven’t communicated yet to do so through the Union structures at their institutions or union members they know so that we can proffer a suitable approach in dealing with this issue urgently,” he said.
