Makerere University students at the Faculty of Computing and Informatics Technology FCIT have threatened to beet up their lectures next Saturday if they dare stop them from sitting the first round of tests again.
Drama Unfolded this weekend when some students who turned up to sit their first round of tests were stopped to do because they had pain insufficient funds as per the university requirement.
The students were required to have paid at least 60% of the university tuition and full functional fees. however given the hard times across the country and the ravaging poverty this was not possible by many students. Its worth noting that this faculty offers nearly the most expensive courses in the university were 6o percent requirement is close to a million shillings for the current third years and over a million shillings for the second and first years.
Many third year students were stopped from sitting the tests , I felt so bitter that struggling third year student who had taken an initiative to at least pay Ushs 900,000/= was stopped from accessing the examination room.
The policy is very unpopular and the students have threatened to isolate the lecturers who are implementing this policy at the faculty. Many other faculties have found the policy unpopular and un realistic and have not implement it. Students argue that they are still mandated to pay 100% tuition fees to sit for the final exams and hence then stopping a student who has struggled to raise some substantial amount of money from sitting the tests is a denial of their right to sit for the tests since they will still pay the all the university money at the end of the day . They further claim that the faculty is not catering for the students from poor families it so happens to be a show of the rich men's sons and daughters .They have therefore unanimously agreed that being third year students, they are at a risk of getting retakes in the different course units and therefore there is a need for action against the lecturers who are implementing this policy come next weekend if they stop them from sitting the remaining papers.

Kakaire Wilber
Makerere University
BIT III

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