Table of Contents

INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION

The Politics of Fees in Uganda

A. B. K. Kasozi
A. B. K. Kasozi is executive director of Uganda's National Council for Higher Education. E-mail: NCHE@infocom.co.ug.

In countries where the state has traditionally paid most of the cost of higher education, the introduction of or increase in tuition fees—or any other form of cost sharing—is a politically contentious issue. Students and parents (even those able to pay) are opposed to fees however much the cost of providing high-quality education escalates. Elected lawmakers, sensitive to the political impact of fees on the wishes of voters, often block fee increases although they may be aware that such an action will reduce the quality of education delivered and impinges on the institutional autonomy of universities. It is reported that one of the reasons the Labour Party in the United Kingdom was returned with a reduced majority in 2004 was its earlier decision to raise university fees.

In Uganda, in June 2005 Parliament reversed Makerere University's proposed hike of tuition fees to align the latter with a reasonable percentage of unit costs. In November of the same year, students at the same university went on strike when the institution hiked examinations fees from about Ushs 3,000 (US$2.00) to about Ushs 100,000 ($75.00). While private universities and schools in Uganda have often increased fees without stiff political and student obstruction, public universities are unable to do so. Parliament and government officials seem to believe that public institutions do not have freedom to set fees independently of government authority. Since the realistic cost of teaching a student is far higher than the actual fees, institutions that can freely sell their higher education products at market value are the ones likely to sustain the delivery of quality higher education. At most Ugandan universities, students pay about 30 percent of the annual cost of the programs for which they are registered. Government institutions—with decreasing government budget allocations coupled with deteriorating infrastructure, declining ability to purchase inputs, and increasing student numbers—are unlikely to provide high-quality higher education for a sustainable period of time.

Fees and Unit Costs
At public and private institutions, fees paid are lower than the unit costs. A study done three years ago and updated recently by the National Council for Higher Education indicates that the cost of educating a medical doctor at Makerere and Mbarara universities is about Ush 10 million (US$6,000) but students pay Ush 2.3 million (US$1,500); in agriculture the cost is Ush 5 million (US$3,000) but students pay Ush 1.66 million (US$1,000); for veterinary science, the cost is about Ush 6 million (US$4,500) but students pay Ush 1.9 million (US$1,300); and in the arts and sciences the story is the same—students pay about 30 percent of what it costs to educate them. It is true that fees are not the only sources of income for public universities. But since Makerere University began to charge fees, it has increased the proportion of fee-paying students to about 80 percent of its enrollments. Its dependence on fees has likewise increased. Government funding has not increased due to increased budgetary constraints. For most Ugandan universities, donations, endowments, and business activities do not constitute a significant component of annual budgets.

The Impact on Quality
The extensive survey of institutions the National Council for Higher Education carried out in 2004 observed that "all higher education institutions do not have adequate financial resources to improve and expand the physical infrastructure, provide modern academic facilities, attract and retain qualified academic staff needed to deliver quality higher education." Faced with lack of money, university administrators cut back on educational inputs to balance budgets. In turn, this affects quality.

What are the Options?
A number of high schools, the so-called First World Schools, in Uganda charge fees that are higher or equal to those charged by universities. Yet the politics of fees that is contributing to the decay of Uganda's public university system is apparently absent at the school level. Like private universities, public institutions should be able to charge fees at market value without undue pressure from the political system.

To resolve the problem of funding public universities, a number of options are possible. First, the national policy of liberalization should extend to universities. Uganda prides itself on having a liberalized economy in which monopolies and market regulations have been broken down. Second, the government and its agencies should not micromanage public universities. The government should respect the institutional autonomy of universities guaranteed under the Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act of 2001. Third, although increases in fees must take into account national per capita incomes, it must be understood that the training of skilled personnel like doctors, lawyers, engineers, veterinarians, computer experts, and other professionals is not cheap. There is a minimum cost of inputs required to train quality professionals. Current fees paid are far below the minimum. Fourth, the state alone cannot finance higher education. The participation of the private sector must be boosted by more incentives, such as tax relief on all education materials and user-friendly legislation. As soon as possible, chartered and statute universities should receive tax relief such as exemption from VAT payment and customs duties. Fifth, scholarships and loan schemes should be put in place as soon as possible to benefit able but poor students to borrow money for fees and pay back when they start to work. Sixth, foreign students should not be subsidized by Ugandan taxpayers. They should immediately pay realistic unit costs in Uganda's tertiary subsector. Seventh, government must prepare the tertiary sector to receive the beneficiaries of the Universal Primary Education (UPE) project by rehabilitating both the university and the nonuniversity subsectors of higher education, with affirmative focus on the latter. Eighth, the tertiary percentage share of the Ministry of Education and Sports budget should be increased from the current 9–15 percent to 25 percent or more if the UPE beneficiaries are to get quality higher education. And, lastly, the looming financial crisis in universities that could retard sustainable development are due to reduced skills capacity. These skills are obtainable at well-funded tertiary institutions. To begin to address the crisis, the country should be prepared to change its attitude toward higher education by shifting training attention away from a focus mainly on universities to other subsectors of the tertiary education system.

Conclusion
The government, its agencies, and students must accept that the cost of providing quality higher education is high and increases with rising costs of living. If stakeholders are not ready to accept cost sharing, institutions will cut back, as they already are doing, on education inputs, which in turn will translate into the delivery of inferior higher education. Public universities are likely to suffer most because they are more subjected to political and student interference than private universities. Currently, these institutions have more funding because of government allocations. However, lack of institutional autonomy in the management of fees is likely, in the long run, to place them at a disadvantage vis-à-vis private institutions.

[Online] Available: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/soe/cihe/newsletter/Number43/p23_Kasozi.htm