PLANS ON STUDENTS UNIT COST MAY HIT SNAG - TCU

BY WARYOBA YANKAMI

Plans by the Tanzania Commission for Universities on the Students Unit Cost are likely to hit a snag this academic year since only seven out of the 50-plus universities in the country have submitted their fee structures for evaluation.

The Commission has therefore issued an ultimatum to
institutions that have not submitted their fee structures to do so before the end of next month so as to speed up the process of working out the formula.

In March this year the government approved a mechanism to guide higher learning institutions on how students will pay for their studies in this academic year scheduled to begin next month. 

Speaking to The Guardian in a telephone interview at the weekend, TCU Acting Executive Secretary Prof Magishi Mgasa said the Commission would need more time to work on the fee structures submitted by each university.

“This delay has also been caused by the late submission of fee structures by each university. So far only seven universities have presented their fee structures to the Commission,” Mgasa said.

Mgasa said the possibility of starting using the Student Unit Cost in this academic year is very slim because more time is needed to go through each fee structure so as to eliminate tuition fees disparities charged by institutions of higher learning on more or less similar programmes.

He said that based on the fee structures submitted to the TCU there is a possibility that fees charged in some universities are going to increase.

“After going through the fee structures which have so far been submitted, we learnt that some of the varsities were charging very low fees,” he said.

He said fees in government universities were likely to increase because most of the institutions charge very low amounts despite the fact that they offer courses to those offered by other institutions.

The Student’s Unit Cost was launched by the government this year to help estimate the actual fees structure for every university according to the courses offered and plans were that it should be effected in this academic year.

In March this year the government approved the mechanism that will guide institutions of higher learning on how students would pay for their studies.

Dubbed Student Unit Cost Framework (SUC) and Tool for Higher Education, the mechanism was expected to be used beginning this next academic year. 

The framework is aimed at determining programme costs and the setting of tuition fees to be employed by institutions. Until now, every institution or groups of universities just employ a formula perfected by themselves to suit their own ends.

Speaking at the launch of the framework, Education and Vocational Training minister Dr Shukuru Kawambwa said the Student Unit Cost is a response to the complaints by stakeholders on the varying tuition fees charged by institutions of higher learning on more or less similar programmes.

The minister said that SUC will help to reduce and regulate tuition fees and assist the Higher Learning Students’ Loan Board (HESLB) to serve more students at reasonable fees.

Dr Kawambwa ordered all varsities and higher learning institutions to start implementing the system from the next academic year after the old programme costs have been computed into the new system and new programmes introduced.

He added that the government understands the economic constraints facing both public and private institutions, insisting that they should create alternative means of getting income instead of depending on subsidies and tuition fees for their development.

 According to TCU the process started since the 2000s, the development of SUC has taken 14 years to come to completion after then the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education formed a committee to develop a nationally accepted methodology to determine the Student Unit Cost. 

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN