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{
    "id": 1474688,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1474688/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 207,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr Julius Ogamba",
    "speaker_title": "The Cabinet Secretary for Education",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Speaker. I will start with your question which also ties with Hon. Naisula’s question on the 14,000 students, who so far have not reported though they were placed. The trends established from previous years is that when students are placed in universities, only about 80 per cent report. It was expected that 122,634 students would report but 124,364 students reported. About 2,000 more students reported than the expected trends. A survey is being undertaken to confirm where the other students are. Sometimes, students do not take up their positions, have multiple admissions, or go out of the country. We are unable to confirm but we will undertake a survey to confirm where they are. Some students go to private universities abroad. I have been told others get married and do not continue schooling. We will check and find out what the position is. Again, with respect to the question on appeals by Hon. Naisula, we have an average of 12,000 students who have appealed and they are being processed. We created a portal for appeals and agreed it should be left open for three months until December 2024. This is because we were informed that some second-year students had deferred their courses because they were unable to pay the fees of the previous year. We agreed to create this portal so that even those who had not applied last year, can apply and get a chance to go back to school. We have about 12,000 students who have applied. Private universities students get loans but not scholarships so they are free to apply. The reason we have this funding model is that the capitation space was not working. When the capitation provisional programme, Differentiated Unit Cost (DUC), was in place, the Government was supposed to pay 80 per cent of the fund for the students. At no time did the Government pay 80 per cent. The highest they ever paid was 66 per cent. This year, they have paid 38 per cent of the capitation required. This has created financial crisis in our universities. To date, we have about 23 universities in a financial crunch leading to the challenges we are seeing, like the strikes taking place. This is because we do not have resources in place and cannot sign a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). You need to have money in order to sign a CBA. When funds were not released, this created a financial crunch. We are looking at what can be done to ensure this problem is solved. This led to the funding model where the money follows students so that when you receive X number of students, you receive X amount of money depending on the band. The release of these funds on time has improved because under the new funding model, this year’s funds were released before students reported. That problem of capitation has been solved partially by the funding model. On the question of the challenges that we have with the fires and what we are doing is being reactionary, it is true that there has been a problem with compliance with some of the The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}