Over 1000 students at Makerere drop out annually over tuition – Nawangwe

Nwangwe who was appearing before the parliamentary committee on education yesterday to present the University’s policy statement for financial year 2023/24 said they had done tracer studies in trying to find out what happens to students who fail to graduate.

“We have done tracer studies using students who come through the MasterCard Foundation and so we have a report on where these students go. On the issue of drop out, I believe we have quite a high rate,” he said.

Nawangwe added: “Every year, we have about 1000 students drop out due to failure to pay tuition fees, and, perhaps, the debate on who Government can sponsor or not should start from. We believe that these students come from disadvantaged families and therefore can’t afford our low fess.”

Makerere University charges between sh1m to sh2.5m for undergraduate prgrammes. The Graduate programmes though are more expensive with most being above sh3m.

The Univeristy also has additional fess which are known as functional fess. For most programmes, these go up to sh900,00.

Last year, the University was able to graduate 12,474 students which was a decline in comparison to the number of students who graduated the previous year – 13, 209.