UoN students threaten protests, lawsuit over higher fees

University of Nairobi (UoN) students have protested against a fee increment citing lack of consultation, and threatened court action and protests starting Wednesday if the decision is not revoked.

UoN has more than doubled tuition fees for postgraduate courses and degrees for self-sponsored students to ease a cash crisis brought about by lower student enrolment.

It increased fees for liberal arts master’s courses by 118 percent, from an average of Sh275, 000 to more than Sh600, 000 for a two-year programme. The new fees will apply to new students joining the university from July.

Harrison Ochieng’, secretary-general of the college of health sciences, termed the decision an injustice that will lock out students unable to pay for training to become doctors, nurses and pharmacists.

“We will not be silent on this. Education is a basic right that every student is entitled to. If the university wants to support the universal health care agenda as proposed by the President, there is no point raising the cost of training doctors. Increasing school fees now will harm our health care in the future,” said Mr Ochieng.

He added that although the university could be in debt, doubling the fees is extreme.

“We understand that the Education ministry is funding universities based on the number of students, as opposed to the courses they are taking, so they may not be in the best financial position, but even if we looked at the current model, UoN should be at an advantage because it admits the biggest number of students per year in Kenya. This fee increment still won’t make sense,” he argued.

“All in all, we, the student leaders, need to be consulted as stipulated in our university’s charter. It is bad that we had to learn about [the fee increment] on a secondary level, yet this is a matter that strikes at the core of our interests.”

Protests and lawsuit

Nathan Kiplangat Kikwai, secretary-general of the UoN Students Association, said he was disappointed with the vice chancellor and university council as “the decision was made behind their backs and without consultation”.

“The fee increment has already been confirmed and the update made on the university website in each and every college. They have increased the fee by 118 per cent. We were not involved in any discussion pertaining to this, and we won’t allow it,” Mr Kikwai said.

“They should be reducing the fee because students are studying online but they have gone ahead to charge the health facility, sporting activity and ICT fees, yet we are not using the services. They have also charged for student identification cards that have never been issued and have not been printed since last year.”

He added that UoN has also changed its management structure, abolishing the offices of five deputy vice chancellors and reducing the number of bursars in several colleges.

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“We will not allow the structural changes because service delivery will suffer, meaning following up on missing marks and fees will become hectic. Students from the college of health sciences will experience more challenges looking for industrial attachments and internship opportunities,” said Mr Kikwai.

“We are giving the university a 48-hour ultimatum to lift these restrictions. If not, we will hit the streets on Wednesday morning to protest. We have also contacted our lawyers and will proceed to court to protest the fee increment.”

The students also noted that some campuses have not yet been opened.

“Students from those schools are suffering at home. They should be at school utilising their fees,” said Mark Mwalimu, the secretary-general from the Lower Kabete School of Business.

Besides the fee increment, the students decried the manner in which the university has followed up on the case of a missing student, whom they said was last traced to Donholm about two weeks ago.

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