Government Chief Whip Thomas Tayebwa yesterday proposed the scrapping of graduation fees in all public universities.
Officiating at the launch of activities to mark 100 years of Makerere University, Tayebwa, said the extra fees paid for graduation is a burden to both the students and parents after struggling to pay tuition fees for all the year of study for various courses.
Tayebwa proposes that the fees be embedded in the tuition fees paid so that the burden is not felt directly. The commemoration events are running under the theme “Leveraging 100 years of excellence in Building a transformational society.”
Chief Whip Tayebwa represented the Speaker of Parliament Jacob Oulanyah and pledged government’s commitment to supporting scientists and researchers to enable them improve and expand on their various undertakings.
“The Speaker of Parliament has promised that he will support strongly that element [of research and innovations] and I will assure you on behalf of Government that we are to look at that,” Tayebwa said.
“We must set our own agenda and direction as Government. We can’t rely on donors to finance that direction, because if donors do, they will take you to their direction,” he added.
He also rallied all the university alumni community both in Uganda and in the diaspora to support Makerere University— saying that it has transformed lives of hundreds of thousands of students—noting that “it’s time to pay back”.
