Students, Makerere bosses disagree on tuition fees

Kampala. Makerere University student leadership and the University Council have disagreed on increment of tuition fees ahead of the 2018/2019 academic year which kicks off in August.

The guild leadership proposed a 15 per cent increment on tuition contrary to the university proposal of 49 per cent and 91 per cent increment on specific courses.

The chairperson of the guild committee that was assigned to study the new proposed fees increments, Mr Polly Bandola, presented their report to the chairman of the University Council, Mr Charles Wana-Etyem, at Makerere University yesterday.

While presenting the report, Mr Bandola said after broad consultations and benchmarks with different universities across the region, they established that the 91 per cent tuition raise was too much for a lay student in Uganda.

“Instead of increasing tuition by 49 per cent and 91 per cent, as it were in the earlier management proposal, there should be a uniform and moderate 15 per cent increase across all the programmes effective 2018/2019 for the next five years,” Mr Bandola said.

“This, however, means that a student who joins the university at a given fees structure that has 15 per cent factored in, shall continue to pay similar fees until he completes the course duration,” he added.

The student leadership also wants the 15 per cent increment to apply only to the incoming first year students for 2018/2019 academic year but not continuing students.

They further submitted that the revenue accruing from the above proposed increment, if approved, should reflect improvement in studnets welfare services to, especially in hygiene, laboratory and teaching facilities, health services, customer care and Wi-Fi.

Mr Bandola said they reached a conclusion of 15 per cent increment after studying the tuition structure of Gulu University, Uganda Christian University and other universities in Kenya, Rwanda and others.

Mr Wana-Etyem said he would call a council meeting before end of next week to harmonise the university administration proposals and the students’ recommendations.

The Vice Chancellor, Prof Barnabas Nawangwe, said he was optimistic the Council would take the students’ proposals in a positive manner.
He said it is the first time students are trying to co-operate with the university management since they have always rejected all proposals by the management.

Among other proposals, the students asked the university to start employing them to work for casual jobs such as cleaning and cooking in halls of residence instead of outsourcing services.

Background. In April, Prof Nawangwe suspended the tuition increment pending consultations with the students’ leadership following a two-day demonstration by students protesting the fees change. A committee of seven students from the Guild Council was formed to study the University Council’s proposal and make their own recommendations.

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