As you enter, the door has no handle. Inside, it is unbearably hot. Windows are welded closed.
About 10 students were inside. Some were lying on the bed, while others were cooking. Some were washing dishes, while others were having a conversations. There is also music playing from a laptop on top of one of the single beds filling the room.
First-year student Linamandla Mthwecu told the Dispatch that they had no choice but to accept their appalling living conditions. “While you are studying preparing for a test, some are cooking, others are playing music, others are talking on the phone. It is a madhouse,” he said.
The interview with Mthwecu was briefly interrupted by another student who said, “The situation is very bad here. I am sure criminals enjoy better living conditions in prison that this.”
Other students agreed, saying as much as they have learnt to tolerate each other, the conditions they were living under were not normal. “This is not healthy,” retorted one student.
Another student joked that once you told a girl that you were staying in that dormitory, “whatever you were starting is over. Girls do not want to come here,” he said.
The conditions in the next room were far worse. The room has a total of 22 beds. Although some were not present during the visit, those who stay there said each bed had its owner. The set up is almost the same, but this room is a little bigger than the first one. “It is difficult to sleep, because people talk to each other, laughing. We all love each other, we do not even steal from each other. If you have left your belongings like your phone or wallet you will find them where you had left them,” said another student.
However, in the same breath, the student said he wished their living conditions were better.
Female students have their fair share of challenges. They sleep in crammed rooms, with more than 400 of then sharing two toilets while others relieve themselves at the nearby bushes.
College principal Noluthando Balfour admitted to the Dispatch that the situation the students lived under was, “not normal”.
“I have been there. I know what you are talking about,” she said.
Balfour said, in 2014, the college council took a resolution to prioritize the issue of student accommodation. “Most of our students are vulnerable due to this situation. As much as there are private accommodation facilities available outside campus, they are not meeting the required standards,” she said.
WATCH: Students living in appalling conditions at Hintsa campus
Students living in appalling conditions at Hintsa campus
Outside the temperature is 33°C. Inside, the room is sweltering.
The windows are welded closed. Twenty-two bunk beds line the walls. This is where 22 of the Eastern Cape’s young minds must study, cook, eat, wash and sleep.
It was the afternoon of February 10 when the Dispatch visited King Hintsa College’s Teko campus outside Centane.
The College has the worst accommodation arrangements for its students. Close to a thousand students live in dormitories that are designed for 500 students.
Teko campus, located at Teko village, has both male and female students studying different courses which include Primary Farming, Farming Management, Civil, Electrical and Mechanical Engineering. The Dispatch team doing the investigation, he was welcomed by stray dogs that prowl looking for leftover food.
After the reporter explained to a group of three students, the purpose of the visit, he was led to a dormitory where first-year students stay.
As you enter, the door has no handle. Inside, it is unbearably hot. Windows are welded closed.
About 10 students were inside. Some were lying on the bed, while others were cooking. Some were washing dishes, while others were having a conversations. There is also music playing from a laptop on top of one of the single beds filling the room.
First-year student Linamandla Mthwecu told the Dispatch that they had no choice but to accept their appalling living conditions. “While you are studying preparing for a test, some are cooking, others are playing music, others are talking on the phone. It is a madhouse,” he said.
The interview with Mthwecu was briefly interrupted by another student who said, “The situation is very bad here. I am sure criminals enjoy better living conditions in prison that this.”
Other students agreed, saying as much as they have learnt to tolerate each other, the conditions they were living under were not normal. “This is not healthy,” retorted one student.
Another student joked that once you told a girl that you were staying in that dormitory, “whatever you were starting is over. Girls do not want to come here,” he said.
The conditions in the next room were far worse. The room has a total of 22 beds. Although some were not present during the visit, those who stay there said each bed had its owner. The set up is almost the same, but this room is a little bigger than the first one. “It is difficult to sleep, because people talk to each other, laughing. We all love each other, we do not even steal from each other. If you have left your belongings like your phone or wallet you will find them where you had left them,” said another student.
However, in the same breath, the student said he wished their living conditions were better.
Female students have their fair share of challenges. They sleep in crammed rooms, with more than 400 of then sharing two toilets while others relieve themselves at the nearby bushes.
College principal Noluthando Balfour admitted to the Dispatch that the situation the students lived under was, “not normal”.
“I have been there. I know what you are talking about,” she said.
Balfour said, in 2014, the college council took a resolution to prioritize the issue of student accommodation. “Most of our students are vulnerable due to this situation. As much as there are private accommodation facilities available outside campus, they are not meeting the required standards,” she said.
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