{"id":8579,"date":"2014-05-22T06:12:03","date_gmt":"2014-05-22T10:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/?p=8579"},"modified":"2014-05-22T06:13:05","modified_gmt":"2014-05-22T10:13:05","slug":"kenya-authorities-deny-increasing-fees-of-public-universities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/8579","title":{"rendered":"Kenya: Authorities deny increasing fees of public universities"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Education, Jacob Kaimenyi, has refuted allegations that the tuition of public universities have been hiked.<\/p>\n

In a statement to the press, Mr. Kaimenyi explained that such an increment cannot be effected without due consultations with university councils and an endorsement by the Ministry of Education.<\/p>\n

Students of public universities across Kenya have taken to the street this week to protest against alleged plans by the authorities to increase their tuition.<\/p>\n

The students have called for the resignation of Mr. Kaimenyi and have also demanded a 50% increment to the amount allotted to them by the Higher Education Loans Board.<\/p>\n

Reports indicate that up to 100 students were arrested at the University of Nairobi on Tuesday in what has been described as the most violent encounter thus far.<\/p>\n

Local sources say the protesters disrupted traffic, harassed motorists and forced many shops in the central business district to close early over fears of being looted.<\/p>\n

However, the police interrupted the demonstration and restored calm to the city. Similar scenes have played out in up to 4 cities across Kenya this week, according to local reports.<\/p>\n

The Police Chief of Nairobi, Benson Kibue, vindicated the crackdown on the protesters; explaining that demonstrations by one section of the public should not paralyse the activities of others.<\/p>\n

“When you cause an obstruction or instil fear among by-standers, then that ceases to be a peaceful demonstration,” he noted<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Reports indicate that the students’ plan to deliver a petition to the Ministry of Education was cut short due to the interruption by the police.<\/p>\n

It is currently unclear how the student unions will respond to the revelations by Mr. Kaimenyi.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the students have demanded the release of their colleagues in detention and have expressed determination not to be cowed into stopping their demonstrations.<\/p>\n

Kenya’s public universities are reportedly in a bad shape due to a lack of sufficient funding. Nonetheless, the amount of people seeking admission into them has soared notably in the past few years.<\/p>\n

Photo\/Ben Curtis\/AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Education, Jacob Kaimenyi, has refuted allegations that the tuition of public universities have been hiked. In a statement to the press, Mr. Kaimenyi explained that such an increment cannot be effected without due consultations with university…<\/span> Read more ›<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[44,2872,1],"tags":[2373,2945,2944,2943,2946],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8579"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}