A Study Of Problems Faced By African Undergraduate Students In Four Universities Throughout Kenya, Zambia And Ghana

This study looks at the problems and challenges of undergraduate students from Africa who are presently studying at Moi University, Eldoret Kenya; Kenyatta University, Nairobi Kenya; University of Ghana, Accra Ghana; University of Zambia, Lusaka Zambia. In addition twelve African students who are presently studying in China were used as case studies. The study used the survey design and participatory research techniques. Questionnaires and interviews were the instruments used to collect data. Interviews of twelve students provided the opportunity to invite each participant to voice his/ her own experiences.The central objective of the study was to identify the issues creating self-frustrations and frustrations between students and lecturers/Management staff which currently create adverse consequences for the students study lives. I decided to focus on students viewpoints or voices because during my undergraduate studies I faced similar problems. Therefore coming to China and listening to my African friends who are students aroused my interest even more in this area.Through this research I found from the questionnaire responses that many of the frustrations came from the Management staff at the universities understudy. In some cases the lecturers contributed to frustrations and some students in order to escape ended up sleeping with lecturers in order to obtain good grades .Further, those students who were used in the case studies spoke out about the harassments and frustration during registration and how difficult it is to obtain scholarships.In addition to these welfare issues and academic matters there was the matter of health and also HIV Aids and its effect on Africa especially among the university students. Of crucial importance was also the debt problem and its effects on Third World countries such as Africa. University students still feel the effect of debt by the way loans issues are handled and the lasting nightmare of insufficient lecture halls and hostels. This also made matters worse and led to another issue which was examined-the issue of corruption among university officials.My research is intended as a contribution toward greater awareness and understanding of students' issues and to identify the needs of African undergraduate students. I hope this research can help create awareness of the plight of African undergraduate students, understand their needs and problems and work with them to seek ways to resolve these issues.