Police arrested three University of Nairobi (UoN) student leaders for taking part in protests on Wednesday, July 14, 2021.
The trio was taken to Central Police station where they were locked up. The arrests were made after the student leaders gave a 48-hour ultimatum to the institution over the fee increment saga.
KMPDU leaders led by their Secretary-General joined UoN Medical Students in the demonstrations which they termed peaceful protests against the proposed fee increment.
Degree courses like commerce, economics and law under the parallel plan have been increased by up to 70 per cent to about Ksh1 million for the four years.
Other affected courses include Communications and MBA for which students will have to pay more than Ksh600,000 for a two-year program. Initially, they used to pay Ksh275,000, indicating an increase of 118 per cent.
The new fees will apply to new students enrolling to join the University starting from August 2021.
To pursue medicine at UoN, a student is now expected to have amassed Ksh 3.8 million for the five-year course.
For law students, they have now to pay Ksh 1,020,000 from Ksh 715,500. Engineering will charge an average of Ks2.1 million from about the initial figure of Ksh1 million.
The move has majorly been informed by the drop in enrolment which has also affected the workforce in the institution.
Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) revealed in their report that enrolment at the institution dropped from 98,715 in 2016 to 62,963 in 2020. That is an accumulative drop of 36.2 per cent.
UoN on Tuesday, July 13 2021, revealed it owes Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) Ksh7.2 billion, coming amid a deepening cash crisis at the institution.
Professor Stephen Kiama stated that the high pending bill forms part of the reasons the university is carrying out financial, curriculum, and structural reforms to mitigate the crisis.
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