Makerere insists on hiking tuition

Apr 27, 2006

MAKERERE University yesterday insisted that the Government must allow it to raise tuition fees to address the institution’s financial constraints.

By Fortunate Ahimbisibwe
MAKERERE University yesterday insisted that the Government must allow it to raise tuition fees to address the institution’s financial constraints.

The top administrators said they were considering funding only the academic component for students in order to maximise the meager resources.

The Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Livingstone Luboobi and the university secretary, Sam Akorimo, said during the stakeholders’ meeting at the university that the fees structure was below the realistic unit cost.

“We tried to raise the fees last year but we were not successful because the Government intervened. We still maintain the unit cost is very low for the cost of university education and we shall appeal to the Government to consider increasing the fees. This will enable us to operate on a better financial base to improve and ensure quality of our education,” he said.

Akorimo said the current unit cost was much lower than what the university had wanted to charge. The average unit cost for science programmes is sh5.5m and sh4.2m for humanities.

“In order to maintain the high academic standards and address the challenge of increasing numbers of students, we must consider a realistic unit cost which is at least nearer what we had proposed,” he said.

The meeting brought together stakeholders from donors, government bodies and the private sector.

They included NORAD, Sida/Sarec, Rockefeller Foundation, Jica and Carnegie Corporation of New York, the National Council for Higher Education, the ministries of local government and finance.

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