Sat, 04 Nov 2017 11:15:02 +0000
By Chite Mtonga
ALL procedures were followed and relevant stakeholders were consulted in the process of revising accommodation and user fees at the University of Zambia, Vice Chancellor Luke Mumba has said.
Commenting on Minister of Higher Education Prof Nkandu Luo’s claims that the Ministry was not consulted, Prof Mumba said all stakeholders including the ministry were part of the process that reached at the current revised accommodation and user fees for students.
“Governance of UNZA is done through committees and the Ministry of Higher Education is represented in the council committee, moreover we wrote to the permanent secretary on the matter, so it is really unfortunate and surprising that the minister was unaware of how we reached at the adjustments which she says are unreasonable,” he said.
Prof Mumba told the Daily Nation in an interview that management had an obligation to run the institution and the University council made adjustments to fees to keep the institution running.
“We cannot not run without adequate funding so as regards to accommodation fees we did a survey and we discovered that we had the lowest accommodation fees in the country but the living conditions at the hostels are pathetic. Students are paying K1,200 a year which is K100 a month so the council saw a need to increase the fees to provide a better service,” Prof Mumba.
Prof Mumba said that no adjustments were made to tuition fees adding that only user fees such as examination fees, sports fees, medical fees and internet fees were revised to improve the services at the institution.
“The UNZA council decided to adjust these fees upwards because they were too low as a result some necessities were expensive for the university to provide, for example internet services, UNZA pays K15 million per year and students only contribute K4.6 million,” he said.
He said that management’s duty was to run UNZA on behalf of Government and the people of Zambia and if government was of the view that the fees were too high they should engage the University council
