Speaker 1: On Monday 2nd July 2018, Makerere University's Guild Special Committee under the leadership of Papawe Desalim, the then Guild President, presented a special report proposing a 15% tuition increment for new students across all programs effective academic year 2018-2018. The contested policy was later approved with a thorough report by the Special Committee of the Guild Representatives appointed by the Guild leadership whose work started on 4th June. The appointed Students Guild Committee presented recommendations to Council on 6th July 2018 and some of which were and I quote, instead of increasing fees by the tune of 49% and 91% as it were in the earlier management proposal there should be a uniform and moderate 15% increase in tuition fees across all programs effective 2018-2019 for the next five years. This however means that a student who joins the university at a given fee structure that has 15% factored in shall continue to pay similar fees until he or she completes the course duration. The increment of 15% should only apply to first-year students effective 2018-2019 going forward and not continuing students. Upon receipt of the recommendations from the students, the university management discussed and agreed that the 15% fees increment would be successively continued for each cohort on the fees for the previous academic year over a five-year period. That every cohort of students continues with the fees structure upon which they are admitted on until they complete their programs. There should be no fees increment on continuing students and that students be sensitized on the new fees. Now just over a year after the tuition policy was implemented, a group of female students at Makia University came out to protest the increment which they allege is cumulative and unaffordable.

Speaker 2: According to the policy, tuition is supposed to be increased by 15% for five consecutive years. So after the five years, it will actually be 75% increase. So it is a very good improvement. You are all doing well. Thank you. to show an increment. And now in psychology, where I study from, students who are paying 1.2 in our time, right now the student is paying 1.8 and that has just been increased by 30%. So 1.8 now times the three times that are remaining. I don't know what that can compute to, but I can say that money is going to be quite a lot.

Speaker 1: The university management has clarified that the tuition increment is nothing like the protesting students are describing it.

Speaker 3: It's not a cumulative style. In other words, if a student pays 1.77, that is to say the tuition fee for a medics student. If at the point of entry, he's supposed to pay 1.77, then it's only 15% of that figure which is going to be paid. And it helps. It is a one-off in the year that a student begins university education. When a student moves to second year, the reflection of the 15% is halted. It doesn't come at all. The moment you enter the university, you have got to encounter the 15%. So even that one that you are saying that has not been affected, every one student that joins a university, at the point of entry in the first year, 15% is paid as we upgrade in council of the money, of the tuition fee that they are supposed to pay on each course.

Speaker 1: However, though the protests started out as tuition protests, they have since broadened to include other issues. Olivia Komgisha, NTV, Weekend News. This month's vote, this month's vote, this month's vote.