On Saturday last week, the president of the republic of Uganda Yoweri Kaguta Museveni held a meeting with Makerere University top administrators and the university vice chancellor Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe at State House Nakasero.
Amongst what was discussed, the president ordered the top administration to compare tuition being paid at the institution with all other public universities in the region and come up with a reasonable tuition policy.
He also added in that it’s not good to use students tuition money to pay lecturers because they are government workers hence have to be paid by the government.
According to the annual reports from the central government, the institution receives a total of 221 billion shillings every financial year of which 164 billion goes to wages and salaries, 20 billion goes to facilitating government sponsored students and 26 billion goes to payment of part time staff. This means that the students’ tuition has to be used in purchasing scholastic materials and development of infrastructure.
Following the issue of deployment of the military in the recent two weeks ‘strike’ the president said it is not the role of the military because they are not trained to deal with students as the police does. He then concluded saying that the students should be allowed to sit for their exams.
