Makerere University tuition hike ought to be rescinded in the interest of the common good

Vincent Nuwagaba

This article was written on 15th September 2009

After seventeen days in Wandegeya Police and Luzira Prison enjoying a sumptuous human rights meal, I reported for lectures on Monday 7th September 2009 in the Faculty of Law, Makerere University. As a fresher, I found all the courses quite interesting although I found the natural law theory taught in a course known as introducing law quite relevant for this article. The natural law theory propounded by among others St Thomas Aquinas, St Augustine, John Locke, Hugo Grotius and Cicero emphasises that law and indeed all activities such as politics, economic system etc must promote the common good and public morality, justice and fairness. Indeed, human rights law, humanitarian law and international law are based on public morality. I would like to relate this to what in my view led to my incarceration and refusal to release me on police bond.

I contested the increment of fees for Makerere and other public universities arguing inter alia that it is the government’s responsibility and not Uganda’s parents and student’s (majority of whom have a peasantry background) to run public institutions. Although Uganda’s media have always reported a 40% increment of tuition fees, this is not wholly true. For many courses, the increment was 40% yet for others it was far more than that as if the 40% is/was not bad enough. For instance, Bachelor of Laws day programme was hiked by 126% whereas evening was hiked by 40% ultimately making a uniform figure of 1,260,000 (one million two hundred sixty thousand) shillings for both day and evening programmes whose tuition was hitherto 600,000 and 900,000 shillings for day and evening programme respectively. It is also worth-noting that the hike was not uniform across all public universities and I would elaborate space permitting.

I state emphatically that this is morally repugnant, economically unviable, politically imprudent and legally indefensible. Presumably, that is why Prof Oloka Onyango told me to challenge its constitutionality as a human rights defender before I was arrested by police on Monday, 17th August 2009 as I tried getting my admission letter in vain. The huge tuition fee increment has shown the highest level of heartlessness of our leaders, the futility of parliament as an institution and is stark abdication by government of its responsibilities. I wonder whether our leaders who have hitherto “been very democratic and visionary” couldn’t forecast that such a decision hurts the common good, hurts the majority of our people-peasants who depend on word of mouth for information and use firewood for fuel. From the basis of Abraham Lincoln’s definition of democracy, “government of the people, for the people and by the people” and from the Greek understanding of the concept democracy which is said to be derived from demos and Kratos concepts that are said to mean people and rule and thus people’s rule, the increment of tuition by even 20% is laughable since the civil servants’ salary was increased by a paltry 5% a percentage, that translates into a paltry 20,000 to 250,000 for majority of university graduates. And for the teachers, police and prison staff who are the wretched of the earth, one wonders whether their children will ever attain the education their parents attained.

Finally, tuition increment like fuel has a bearing on all sectors because virtually every family in Uganda has a student or potential student in the university. Accordingly, all workers must have a not less than 100% increment in their salaries and/or wages. Otherwise, it will be disgraceful if our professors cannot raise tuition for their children in the university where they teach. Thus, I enjoin government to reverse its decision so that the extra monies paid already by freshers can be transferred on next semester’s bill. The cause of the problem is not Makerere University but government failure to remit funding to the university. As we build for the future!

The author is a human rights defender and can be reached on mpvessynuwagaba@gmail.com or +256772843552