MPs eye Uhuru to block higher UoN tuition fees

MPs want President Uhuru Kenyatta to direct the University of Nairobi (UoN) Council to rescind its decision to double tuition fees.

The MPs who met with student leaders and medical practitioners’ union officials said allowing UoN to more than double fees will open the window for other universities to follow suit.

The UoN fees changes affect postgraduate and parallel degree students.

The university increased fees for liberal arts Master’s courses like communication and MBA to more than Sh600,000 for a two-year programme from an average Sh275,000, reflecting an increase of 118 percent.

Degree courses like commerce, economics and law under the parallel plan had their fees raised increased by up to 70 percent to about Sh1 million for the four years.

“We want to appeal to the President to urgently intervene and rescind this decision. Doubling fees will make university education a preserve of the super-rich,” Mr Abdulswamad Nassir said.

MPs Babu Owino (Embakasi East), Rashid Kassim (Wajir East) and Teddy Mwambire (Kaloleni) said if the President fails to act, lawmakers will pass a resolution directing the university to reverse its decision.

“The unilateral increase of fees by the university should not be tolerated. This decision should have only been made after consulting with students, parents and the ministries of Education and Health. The President should reverse this decision as a matter of urgency,” Mr Rashid said at a press conference held at Parliament Buildings.

Mr Owino termed the decision to double fees as an “absurdity” given that UoN has a lot of property including idle land that can be disposed of to meet the cost of running the institution.

The university increased the fees to ease a cash crunch following a dip in student enrolment.

The fees will apply to new students joining the university from this month, marking the first major review for postgraduate courses and parallel degrees in nearly two decades.

The university is betting on the review to lift revenues from fees, which have dropped in recent years and pushed Kenya’s leading public university to a Sh1.4 billion loss in the year to June 2018.

UoN settled on the easier target of postgraduate and self-sponsored students after undergraduate students under State sponsorship opposed proposals by vice-chancellors to have tuition charges tripled to Sh48,000 annually.