Dar es Salaam. Over 900 second-year Diploma and Certificate students at the Kampala International University in Tanzania (Kiu-T) will most likely fail to sit for their examinations because they cannot afford the requisite fees and related expenses.
This is because the University has reportedly doubled the fees without consulting with the students and other interested parties.
The students involved are enrolled for diploma and certificate course programmes in the faculties of clinical medicine, laboratory and pharmacy during the 2016/17 academic year. However, the University’s vice-chancellor, Prof Jamidu Katima, denied the allegation in a telephone response on Wednesday, stating that his office was not aware of the students’ claims.
“It is common for academic institutions to bar students from sitting their examinations if and when they fail to pay the requisite fees; but I am not aware of the allegations suggesting that we have doubled the fees,” he said.
One KIU-T second-year, Clinical Medicine Diploma student dropped in at the Mwananchi Communications Limited (MCL) head offices in Dar es Salaam on Tuesday.
Speaking in an exclusive interview on the matter, the student said: “According to details shown in the University’s admission guidebook, diploma students for all the three faculties were required to pay Sh950, 000 per year. But, after joining up, we were required to pay Sh1.9 million per year, an average of Sh950, 000 per semester!”
He added “Again, according to the admission guidebook, certificate programme students were required to pay Sh600,000 per year – but they now have to also pay Sh1.9 million per year…”
Asked to comment on this, Prof Katima said “all the relevant information is available on the University’s website – and it has not been changed in recent times. I wonder where the students got their information from! Perhaps they haven’t been reading the information properly or in full!”
Another KIU-T certificate programme student told The Citizen that “we are not beneficiaries of government loans. Our parents and guardians have to pay the fees and related expenses out of their pockets – and only a very few ordinary Tanzanians can afford this,” he said on condition of anonymity.
But, the student frankly admitted that the Kiu-T financial details shown in the admission guidebook were cheaper compared to those of many other Universities. Hence the high number of Tanzanians who flock to apply for admission to Kiu!
“I am fairly convinced that the University management deliberately provided incorrect information in the admission guidebook so as to lure large numbers of course applicants,” he said. Another Kiu-T diploma programme student who was among those who visited MCL head offices on Tuesday stated as follows: “I initially joined the University of Dodoma (Udom) to undertake a Bachelor’s degree course in Education before joining Kiu-T.
“My parents could not afford the Udom fees amounting to Sh1.2 million a year. So, I decided to apply for a Diploma in Clinical Medicine at Kiu-T because the fees were a bit cheaper.
“But I was really shocked when I was told that I am to pay Sh1.9 million per year – while it is clearly stated in the admission guidebook that I need only pay Sh950, 000 per year,” the ‘defector’ from Udom to Kiu-T told The Citizen on Tuesday.
In the event, the students wrote letters to the minister for Education, Science and Technology, Prof Joyce Ndalichako, and the National Council for Technical Education (Nacte), seeking their intervention in efforts to resolve the impasse.
However, the matter was yet to be resolved as we went to Press.
