Rethinking ‘varsity fee hike
A lot has been written on the recent decision by the Council of the University of Malawi to hike fees paid by both normal and mature entry students. While I, as a student at one of the constituency colleges of the University of Malawi, would be expected to disapprove of the astronomical fee adjustments arrived at by the council, my views on the whole issue are that the increment was long overdue but the timing and the percentages by which the fees have been hiked are simply outlandish and restrictive to the poor. Another issue is that the fee hike is unaffordable hence it needs review.
Life to a majority of Malawians has become unbearable with everyday skyrocketing of prices of goods and services that most of the people are barely surviving. Majority of households have scaled down on most luxuries as the battle to survive takes centre stage and the heat is felt more in big families that have to feed several mouths from sources of income that are fast dwindling.
In such a height of economic meltdown which has seen families barely surviving due to the ever increasing consumer goods as the local currency continues to nose dive, university of Malawi’s supposedly men of letters found it reasonable to hike fees to such obscene proportions as to move K275,000 to K400,000 for normal students and from K275,000 to K950,000 year for mature students. This fees hike, to say the least, does not portend well for most students who hitherto were even struggling to raise K275,000 with reports from the press revealing many have dropped out.
In the din of the chaos that has been generated from the fee hike, some commentators sugges t that the fee i s reasonable considering that in comparison with other universities Malawi public university fees are on the lower side.
I beg to differ. While I may agree in the first place with the observation that Malawian universities are far much cheaper to an extent, we should not be blind to realise the facts that have made our university be that cheaper. It could be because even income for the majority workers in Malawi are very little in comparison to the countries we are comparing our university to hence to put things in tandem with our income the university had to be cheaper so as to be in conformity with the income of majority Malawians.
It is always an insult when some observers are seen suggesting that the fee is reasonable without analysing the hard facts on the ground. That most people in formal employment in Malawi struggle every day is not debatable. It’s a way of life. While a graduate from South Africa could be enjoying life in that country by being able to eat beef throughout the months and has change for entertainment, a typical Malawian graduate is always surviving on matemba. And while a Tanzanian cop would be decently housed, a Malawian cop is struggling for accommodation. These are attributes that people should always put into perspective when they look into the fee hike and just not only looking at the numbers.
We cannot always budget our finances by comparing with the standards of life of our neighbours next door, we will risk running without money hardly a day into the other month which would spell doom for our families.
The fact of the matter is that the fee hike is unreasonable and must be reviewed to be in conformity with the standard of an average Malawian.
If a whole degree holder in Malawi earns K 130,000 a month and that graduate has a son whom he is expecting to be paying for K400, 000 at the university, how will he manage if he rents a house, has a family of three and his other kids want to go to school how would he manage? And yet this is an individual we believe is earning a good amount. And what about non degree holders. How much are they earning? And if this non degree holder who is obviously earning less than K100, 000 contemplates on going to university of Malawi to further his education how long will he have to save for his tuition now pegged at K950, 000?
I am giving these statistics just to underscore the fact that the fees were raised to proportions that most Malawians cannot afford. Only for the minority few can afford those fees. These fees have the potential to deny many less privileged an opportunity of getting a university education.
And while the council is saying the needy will be given loans by the Loans Board we should not take that for gospel truth, because during the past year despite the existence of the board many eligible students were turned down. These are students who jam-packed newspapers asking for well wishers to bail them out. This only vindicates my view that many people will drop out with these horrendous fee increments.
If when the fees were at K275,000 a year many students had it tough to afford to pay for their tuition what makes Unima council think that now at K400,000 and K950,000 for normal and mature students respectively will manage. It smacks of lack of humanity on the people that made the decision to have the fee hiked to that level.
I humbly request President Peter Mutharika who is chancellor of the University of Malawi to intervene and rescind the council’s decision on the fee hike otherwise potential future leaders of Malawi risks facing a bleak future for which the nation will lose out.
Back to my preamble, the Unima council could have a point to effect a fee hike considering the rising cost of living and running the university but it should wait for things to start working better economically for the majority then fee hike would be accepted but not to the extent they have hiked them. For now these fees are suicidal. For now government should allocate more funds to the university to prevent the university transferring its burden on poor and innocent students.
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