GOVERNMENT has extended an olive branch to financially-challenged university students to work as groundsmen during semester breaks to raise tuition fees, Higher Education deputy minister Godfrey Gandawa told Senate last Thursday.
BY VENERANDA LANGA
“On humanitarian basis, all our colleges now have a programme in which we allow our students to work for their fees. Instead of us hiring people to clear our grounds, we have other colleges that have farms, we allow the students to work in the fields,” Gandawa said.
“We allow the students to work in our grounds and then we say they are paying for their fees.
This is a situation obtaining in all our institutions.”
Gandawa said many university students were graduating without paying a single cent, but this time they would have paid indirectly by working for their fees.
He said many students’ unions had their own schemes where they raised money for those who fail to finance their education.
“That is why you see when students are graduating they do not ululate when someone is being capped, but they cheer other students when they are graduating. They will tell you it is because these students have had social problems of paying fees and their colleagues managed to raise fees through fund-raising activities.”
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He added that students were allowed to stagger payment of their fees.
“As a ministry, we are in the process of engaging various stakeholders, including banks, to provide funding. We are at an advanced stage with Agribank to make sure that they assist our students in colleges to pay for fees, especially teacher training colleges.”
Most State universities in the country last year increased fees by 10% resulting in some students dropping out.
