Minister of Education and Sports, Janet Kataaha Museveni has weighed in on the ongoing unrest at the Ivory Tower. Janet says it has taken her time to find out whether students have genuine reasons to start demonstrating.
The First Lady says the Makerere University management took the trouble to ensure that students were fully involved and consulted in the process of establishing an acceptable tuition fee structure for the Institution.
She states that after a series of consultations with the student leadership, the outcomes were agreed upon by both parties.
“How then do students turn around, afterwards, and accuse the University management of imposing ‘high costs’ on the students?” Janet wonders.
Janet thinks that the unrests might be having hidden agendas because she has established that some of the people involved in the demonstration are not students from Makerere University or any other university.
“They are people who have made it their way of life to be paid to join any riot wherever it is happening,” she claims.
She adds, “Apparently, the political opposition in this country – who are well funded ‘somehow’ by some ‘unknown sources’ – find it useful to pay unemployed young people to riot wherever and whenever they believe they see a viable opportunity.”
Janet expresses her dismay saying some of the students at the forefront of the demonstrations are the privileged ones. She explains that many of them are sponsored by Government, Master Card Foundation, and State House while others are beneficiaries of the Higher Education Students Loan Scheme.
Mama Janet believes there are smarter ways of solving any puzzle than engaging in confrontations and destruction of life and property.