Makerere University Business School (MUBS) has rejected a reported directive from Makerere University to increase the tuition fees paid by students on the Masters and PhD programs to Shs 5 million and Shs 7 million respectively.
The directive (according to MUBS) follows an earlier resolution by the Makerere University Council that the affiliated Nakawa based MUBS revises the said tuition fees not later than March 26 this year.
However, MUBS has defiantly refused to implement the ‘directive’, questioning its legality and citing numerous reasons including the possibile consequences that might be precarious for the institution.
In a letter dated April 3, the Chairperson of the MUBS Council, Prof Venansius Baryamureeba responding to the Makerere University Council Chairman, Eng Dr Charles Wana Etyem, states that MUBS is an autonomous institution which has powers to fix its own scales of fees.
Prof Baryamureeba quotes the University and Other Tertiary Institutions Act, 2001 which he says empowers Councils of these institutions to fix scales of fees and boarding charges.
“Whereas MUBS is a public tertiary institution by law affiliated to Makerere University, it is financially and administratively autonomous of Makerere,” Prof Baryamureeba writes to the Makerere University Council.
He describes the directive issued by Makerere as “unlawful” and “unfortunate”.
While MUBS acknowledges that it runs Masters and PhD programs for the awards of Makerere University Degrees, Baryamureeba says that 100% of the tuition fees on these programs goes to MUBS for the basic reason that tuition fees is meant for running of programs and nothing to do with affiliation.
If implemented, he argues, such an “abrupt” increment of tuition fees could result in strikes by students or even a fluctuation in the already low enrollment to the said programs.
“Also, MUBS has not been able to recruit the desired number of students in its graduate programs even at the current tuition fees,” he says in the letter.
According to Baryamureeba, public education ought to be inclusive but observes that the tuition fees proposed by Makerere University “are more likely to exclude the majority of Ugandans who earn less than Shs 500,000 per month”.
The former Makerere University Vice Chancellor further argues that going by the current fees charged by the various universities in Uganda, it would be self destructive for MUBS to raise its fees and lose students to more affordable universities.
“MUBS gets a government subvention in addition to fees paid by students to enable it run all its programs. Therefore, MUBS will not be increasing its tuition fees on all academic programs including those for the award of Makerere Degrees in the foreseeable future unless government directs all public institutions otherwise,” Prof Baryamureeba says.
Misunderstanding
However, when contacted by SoftPower News to elaborate on the premise upon which Makerere University Council based to direct for the hiking of the MUBS tuition fees for Masters and PhD programs, Eng Dr Wana Etyem who heads Makerere Council suspected that there could have been a misunderstanding on the part of MUBS.
Dr Etyem told this website in an interview that Makerere has no powers to direct MUBS on its fees charges except for functional fees.
“Makerere University Council does not control fees charged by MUBS except for functional fees. I have not seen the letter but Makerere’s relationship with MUBS is only on functional fees. Someone must have misunderstood,” Dr Etyem said.
He clarified that the directive by Council was in regard to Postgraduate programs offered at the main campus, in order to meet the costs of running these programs since government does not provide financing for Post-graduate courses.
“The directive was for programs offered at Makerere main campus. If you do your MBA in Makerere University main campus, that decision covers you, but if you do it from MUBS, it doesn’t cover you. So, somebody must have been excited and jumped on a conclusion,” he added.
