Disgruntled Lira University students protest against university administration

26 April 2023, 11:51 am

By Nancy Atim

Lira-Students of Lira University on government sponsorship have held a protest to express their dissatisfaction with the university administration.

Clad in blue under graduate gowns, the disgruntled students holding placards expressed dissatisfaction on administration.

The university guild speaker, Ronald Kule Mbinga who led a group of over 70 students carried placards protesting the shillings 720,000 allocations to each government student out of the 144 million shillings government allocates to them as privileges and entitlements for government students in all public universities across Uganda.

Among other issues the students say the university has failed to address is; missing marks with evidence of seating papers, accountability for guild fee, recess fee issues, accountability for ID fee, T-shirt and undergraduate gowns, unexplained increment of tuition for private students and allowances for government sponsored students catering for only 100 students out of over 250 students.

They also demanded accountability for the 20,000 shilling they pay per semester as sports fee yet the institution has never participated in any sports activity and the 14million shillings allocation for the repair of street lights around the university since July last year. According to the students the absence of light within the university is exposing them to cruel wrath of criminals.

Marvin Eddie Ssebuwutu, government sponsored students representative 2021/22 said that the university has never held nor participated in any university competitions.

He also said that the administration has failed to stoke hospital teaching facility with drugs yet each student pays 60,000 shillings per semester, a fee that has never been accounted for.

However, the DPC, Lira city, Joseph Bakaleke short lived the protest, calling upon the students to instead have a peaceful dialogue with the administration.

Prof Jasper Ogwal Okeng, the Lira University Vice Chancellor said the challenges listed by the students is also being faced by students in other public universities like Gulu,Kabale and Soroti since government does not cover allowances of all the students.

According to Nathan Hasahya Hagobi, the Bursar-Lira University,the university only receives 144 million shillings for 100 government sponsored students.

“Since financial year 2016/17, the government through the Ministry of education and sports has been allocating the same amount of money yet the university keeps admitting more government students with each entitled to receive shillings 720,000”, Hagobi added.

It’s against this background that Lawrence Egole, Lira Resident City Commissioner challenged the university leadership to at all time brief the students on some of the challenges they come up with.

According to him, it will curb on conflicts that arise between the students and the university administration.