Tension was high outside the Kisii University Eldoret campus academic block on Tuesday amid students’ protests over alleged hiked fees.
The demonstrations were held by hundreds of current and former students who claimed to be frustrated by the campus’ decision to deny them their certificates by demanding more fees from them.
Some of the students who were staging the protest maintained that the university’s administration has hiked the school fees without proper consultation with the relevant stakeholders.
Hundreds of students from the campus who graduated last year in December have been barred from collecting their certificates at the main campus on what the university terms as underpayment of fees.
“There was an error at our campus’ finance system whereby we have realized that we were undercharging our students Sh25, 000 less than what our main and sister campuses charge, so those students who had cleared fees in our campus and graduated last year will have to pay the cash to the university account for them to be able to pick their certificates from the main campus,” said Dr. Albert Kirui, director Kisii University, Eldoret campus.
Dr Kirui urged the students to be calm and apologized to the parents noting that that the decision was made by the university’s senate.
"We have been badly affected since we cannot pick our certificates yet we cleared fees last year and graduated, this is unfair,” said Viola Chirchir, an Education graduate at the campus.
The students chanted in protests as they made business at the institution to come to a standstill at the better part of the afternoon.
“There is no way we can pay money that we do not understand where and why it is being sourced from us: they could have communicated to us before we graduated. Let this new fees structures affect only those who are still studying but not those of us who graduated,” said Tony Rugut, a former Journalism student at the campus.
The campus deputy director of finance Dr Charles Ongiyo told Hivisasa that as leaders of the institution; they are doing all they can to convince the main campus administration to re-look at the decision.
The students vowed to take legal action against the campus should it fail to reverse the decision.
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