NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 14- Three University of Nairobi students were on Wednesday arrested, during protests over the planned increment of school fees. They are being held at the Central Police Station.
Traffic flow was interrupted along Uhuru Highway, Waiyaki way and Riverside drive as roads were rendered impassable.
One of the students’ group demonstrated near the Kenyatta National Hospital, while the rest were based at the Uhuru Highway, near the main the main campus.
“We are struggling with many issues then they are here telling us the fees will be increased. This is wrong and unacceptable,” a student who was participating in the protest told Shahidi News. “This is unfair and more so now when the economy has almost collapsed.
Attempts by police to restore calm was thwarted as the students resulted to throwing stones at them, resulting to a running battle.
The city experienced a heavy traffic snarl up as a result of the protests.
University of Nairobi Students Association (UNSA) chairperson Eddie Mwenda has since called off the protests.
The UoN Vice-Chancellor Prof Stephen Gitahi was expected to issue an address on Wednesday afternoon, in a bid to address the students concerns.
According to the university management, they plan to increase the fees due to a significant drop in enrolment which has also affected the workforce in the institution.
Degree courses like commerce, economics and law under the parallel plan have been increased by up to 70 per cent to about Sh1 million for the four years.
Other affected courses include Communications and MBA for which students will have to pay more than Sh600,000 for a two-year program which they initially paid Sh275,000.
The management said the new fees will apply to new students enrolling to join starting from August 2021.
To pursue medicine at UoN, a student is now expected to have amassed Sh3.8 million for the five-year course while law students will pay Sh1,020,000 from Sh715,500 and Engineering will charge about Sh2.1 million from about the initial figure of Sh1 million.
According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) enrolment at the institution dropped from 98,715 in 2016 to 62,963 in 2020 which is a 36 percent drop.
KNBS attributed this is to among others competition.
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