The High Court has halted the University of Nairobi (UoN) heads from implementing new fees for doctor’s seeking to do masters degrees until all partners are consulted.
Despite the fact that Justice Anthony Mrima dismissed the case by Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists’ Union (KMPUD) that the fees were “cosmic and past the range of many Kenyans”, he concurred with the association that there was no open cooperation before the university increased the new fees.
“In the end, there is no difficulty in holding that the 2nd Respondent violated Articles 10(2)(a) and 201 of the Constitution for failure to undertake sufficient public participation before the preparation of the Differentiated Unit Cost Criteria (DUC),” the judge said.
The university dramatically increased fees for postgraduate courses and parallel degrees to facilitate a money smash because of a dip in student enrolment.
Understudies doing medication were to part with Sh3.8 million for the five-year course, up from Sh2.35 million, starting August.
For those pursuing liberal arts courses like communication and MBA, the charge was increased to more than Sh600,000 for a two-year program from a normal Sh275,000, mirroring an increment of 118%.
The association challenged the new charge saying a large portion of its members, who are studying medicine , dentistry, and and pharmacy would be affected because the fees had been raised threefold.
In the judgment, Justice Mrima said the Universities Funding Board conceded that it just consulted a few partners during the time spent concocting the DUC.
“Apart from the selected few, the rest of the public was not reached out. Whereas I fully agree that the stakeholders who were consulted in the process of coming up with the DUC deserved such opportunities, the nature and effect of the DUC called for a more elaborate and robust mode of involving the rest of the public,” the Judge said.
The Judge, in any case, said the Union failed to show how the upwards survey of the feess shortens the right to highest achievable medical services.
Equity Mrima said the need for update of the charges is inevitable.
