{"id":62440,"date":"2018-03-17T09:39:40","date_gmt":"2018-03-17T07:39:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=62440"},"modified":"2018-03-17T09:39:41","modified_gmt":"2018-03-17T07:39:41","slug":"luanar-fees-disparity-sparks-outrage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2018\/03\/17\/luanar-fees-disparity-sparks-outrage\/","title":{"rendered":"Luanar fees disparity sparks outrage"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Discrepancies in tuition fees at Bunda and Natural Resources College \u2013 NRC, under the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (Luanar), have sparked an outrage as guardians are questioning its justification.<\/p>\n

Malawi News understands that the students were on 2017\/18 selection list by the<\/p>\n

National Council for Higher Education (NCHE).<\/p>\n

One of the students\u2019 parents who spoke on condition of anonymity said his daughter, together with 35 other students who are doing BSc in Food Technology at NRC campus are paying almost double the amount paid by their counterparts at Bunda Campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, whereas Bunda students are paying K 362,500 per year, NRC students are paying K652,500 per year (K 326,250 per semester). On top of that, NRC also accepts private applications for its degree programme and the private students are combined with NCHE selected students and they both pay same fees,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Luanar Registrar, Philip Kaonda said though he is aware of the issue, he did not receive a formal complaint from the parents of the concerned students.<\/p>\n

He said the problem came about when the university advertised the opening of a course but failed to indicate that it was meant for NRC campus, which has a higher fee structure.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an institution, we give offer letters to students when selected to the university with terms and conditions written.<\/p>\n

It is up to them to accept or reject the offer because fees will always differ, depending on the programme one wants to study,\u201d Kaonda said.<\/p>\n

He said the government helps only few needy students.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are working on how best we can avoid repeating the mistake as we currently work on another selection,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ministry of Education spokesperson, Lindiwe Chide said it is unfortunate that students from the two campuses are in this situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cPowers to decide on fees are with the university\u2019s council.<\/p>\n

Any complaints guardians and students have must be directed directly to the university council where they shall be helped accordingly,\u201d Chide said. Civil Society Education<\/p>\n

Coalition (CSEC) Executive Director, Benedicto Kondowe said it is absurd that such a scenario is emerging after the NRC was merged with Bunda College to become Luanar.<\/p>\n

He said the merging of the two signified that they would have the same fees for both students and that most of the academic requirements would be similar.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe College\u2019s management should resolve the situation as soon as possible as failure to do so can result in other students protesting. This hinders quality education delivery,\u201d Kondowe said.<\/p>\n

Bunda College and NRC were merged in 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Discrepancies in tuition fees at Bunda and Natural Resources College \u2013 NRC, under the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (Luanar), have sparked an outrage as guardians are questioning its justification. Malawi News understands that the students were on 2017\/18 selection list by the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE). One of the students\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":44504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62440"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62444,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62440\/revisions\/62444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}