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Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Makerere University has capitulated to demands by students and suspended planned fees increments for several undergraduate courses.
The suspension comes on the heel of a strike that started on Monday. The suspension came after an all-day meeting on Wednesday between university management led by Vice Chancellor Prof Barnabas Nawangwe, and students’ leaders, that chatted a way of ending the strike.
Uganda’s oldest university last week advertised the undergraduate courses for academic year 2018/19, increasing fees for some courses in the College of Health Sciences and College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
After requesting for time to consult university council members, Prof Nawangwe gave students a written commitment suspending tuition increment. The students’ leaders led by Guild President, Papa Were Salim, also called off the strike.
The students’ leaders were earlier informed that the undergraduate courses whose tuition was increased included those in the college of health sciences and some from college of humanities and social sciences which have had their curriculum revised. After curriculum review, Prof Nawangwe said, operation costs of these courses were extremely higher than what students had been paying.
Bachelor of Journalism and Communication is among those courses whose fees has been hiked from sh980,000 to 1.2 million. Fees for Bachelor of Pharmacy had been moved from sh1.34 million to sh2m while Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery had also been moved from sh1.34 million to sh2m.
Following a consultative meeting between management and @MakGuild, the following understanding has been reached. pic.twitter.com/9DddGllzIt
— Makerere University (@MakerereU) April 18, 2018
Other courses that had been in the tuition increment bracket are; Bachelor of Dental Surgery from 1.34 million to two million, Bachelor of Science in Nursing from 1.34 to two million, Bachelor of Environmental Health Science from 1.05 million to 1.5 million, Bachelor of Information Systems and Technology from 1.3 million to 1.6 million and Bachelor of Biomedical and Laboratory Technology from 784,000 to sh1.5 million.
The university management expressed commitment to consult students’ leaders before tuition increment for undergraduate courses.
The university last month also hiked fees for postgraduate students from sh2.5 million and 3.5 million to a range of five million to 10 million per academic year.
Police heavily deployed
As students’ leaders met management team, other students enclosed the Main Building chatting that strike must continue if the university doesn’t revoke fees increment. This prompted police to reinforce its deployment within the university.
Police is still heavily deployed within the university. Students’ leaders asked Asan Kasingye, the Police Political Commissar, who was in the meeting, to remove police from the university.
Kasingye refused, telling students that there are command structures that they go through before calling off the deployment.
Kasingye, however, promised to communicate to the Inspector General of Police that the situation has been normalised so that he can call off the deployment.
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