MAK Guild Says M7 Meeting With Nawangwe is Useless Without Students’ Input

RE: UPDATE ON THE LIST OF OUR DEMANDS

Yesterday, Sunday 10th November, 2019, the Sunday Vision published a headline, “Makerere to Change Fees Structure Again.” The story followed a meeting between the University Administration and President Museveni.

While we respect the meeting between the University Management and Council with the President, it will only be just for the Students Leadership, which is the major stakeholder in the impasse to interface with him prior to any further decisions he will thereon make.

The Makerere University impasse is generational, and is bound to affect millions of Ugandan families.

In the meantime, we continue to engage the Parliamentary Committee on Education and Sports on the list of the Students demands and aspirations as we await their feedback on 13th November, 2019.

It must be on record that politicking to procrastinate another student protest on the same list of demands is a likeliness to administering a pain killer to a chronic illness. Either way, the protest may delay, but when it does again, it will shake up the world. I so pray that the resolutions of all the major stakeholders therein reflect the aspirations of the students who represent millions of Ugandan families.

We maintain that;

1. Suspended students be unconditionally reinstated

2. The 15% cumulative tuition increment be halted. It’s rather embarrassing for policy officials at the University to attempt to compare tuition elsewhere across the region as a benchmark for determining the tuition in Makerere University, not factoring in the GDP, Income Per Capita and the inflation rates of the same countries from where they derive the comparisons. We do pray that they engage their minds into a broader understanding of the Social-Economic components of the Region.

3. The Students Electoral Regulations be degazetted and that the University Council desist from attempting to directly meddle into student governance

4. That sanitation in halls of Residence be immediately improved

Yours faithfully,

Julius Kateregga, Guild President.