Senegalese students struggle after grant payment delays

Senegalese student Fallou, 26, loitered near one of the restaurants of the University of Dakar, hoping that one of his friends would give him a luncheon voucher so he could eat.

A meal ticket only costs 100 CFA francs ($0.16), but even at that price Fallou, who did not want to give his surname, cannot afford it.

The Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar (UCAD) is one of the biggest universities in west Africa with around 90,000 enrolled students.

Fallou is one of the many first-year master's students who have not received their grant payments for several months now.

For the last few days, he has not had any money.

"It's been like that for several weeks now," he said, after managing to find someone to help him in the long queues in front of the restaurant.

"But thankfully I can count on my friends to support me, otherwise I wouldn't be able to eat," he added with relief.

- 'Cashflow trouble' -

Last week, clashes broke out between the police and first-year master's students, who are demanding more than 500,000 CFA francs in arrears.

These state-funded grants can go up to 60,000 CFA francs per month.

Angry students demonstrated for several days, trying to block the main road in front of the university and throwing stones at police officers, who responded by firing tear gas.

The payment delays cover the period from October 2023 to September 2024, Senegal's student grants director Jean Amédé Diatta said on a television programme.

He promised that the payments would start "at the beginning of the week and will be made little by little".

The higher education minister explained in October 2024 that the situation was triggered by "cashflow trouble" but also by the inconsistency of the university calendar for the last several years.

He said the back payments of grants had risen to 15 billion CFA francs for just one month at the beginning of the academic year.

But "we don't have enough money to pay everything at once", he told reporters.

Confrontations between the police and students over grant payments are relatively common in Senegal.

In 2018, one person died during clashes over delays in grant payments at the  Gaston Berger University in Saint-Louis.

One student was also killed at UCAD in August 2014, after protests over the same issue.

UCAD was also a site of chaos and destruction in June 2023, when riots broke out across Senegal following the conviction of the former opposition leader Ousmane Sonko, who is now the Prime Minister.

This resulted in then-president Macky Sall's regime closing the university, which is known for having trained several generations of African officials, including heads of state, for a period of nine months.

The students decided to end their demonstrations at the start of the week, as some of them began receiving their payments. However, others are still waiting to be paid.

On the campus where they have their food and lodging, life has also returned to normal.

The university's main pathways are crowded with people and classes are taking place as usual on the teaching campus.

Fallou is among those who have been left on the sidelines. Like many of his friends, he took part in last week's clashes.

- Hard times -

Coming from a poor family in central Senegal, Fallou relies solely on his grant to cover his expenses, and sometimes even those of his parents.

"Without the grants we can't survive and we can't study properly. We use the grants to buy our meal tickets, to pay for our education expenses, and to pay for our accommodation and transport costs," he said, adding that he was ready to protest again if he does not receive his grant by the end of the week.

The new administration "should do whatever they can to pay the grants before the 15th of each month to avoid clashes like this happening again", said Abdoulaye Ba, a student representative from the science faculty.

But times are hard. President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, elected in March on a ticket of change, and Prime Minister Sonko, have repeatedly insisted over the last few months that Senegal is in dire straits.

"We can understand our new leaders: they are a young team who still don't have much experience and who have inherited the problems of the previous regime," said student Arouna Dia, 25, who is still waiting for her grant backpayments.

"But that doesn't mean they shouldn't pay us our grants because they are still receiving their salaries".