For the second semester, students will be required to pay Shs 6 million up from Shs 4.9 million, a difference of Shs 1.1 million. Students have in addition been paying recess fees of Shs 1.5 million. However, with the proposed fees; students will now pay Shs 3 million, an increment Shs 1.4 million.
 
This fee caters for tuition, accommodation and functional fees at the university for all its students. The unit cost for training a medical student at IUIU has been Shs 20.1 million for the last two academic years of 2015/2016 and 2016/2017.
 
Dr Ahmed Kawesa Sengendo, the IUIU Rector, says the university increased the number of medical students in the 2017/2018 academic year after admitting 139 students to pursue Bachelors of Medicine and a Bachelor of Surgery.
 
Dr Sengendo however says that they turned down a number of applications due to limited facilities. The first group of medical students at Habib Medical School in Kibuli is currently in the fourth year of study and are expected to graduate in November 2019.
 
As of 2017/18 academic year, the total enrollment of students is 365 from 12 countries including Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Yemen, Malawi, India, Comoros, Britain and Yemen. Of these, 192 are males and 173 females.
 
IUIU management however says that the cost of running the medical school is high and that it was already straining the university’s resources of the Kampala campus. IUIU has other campuses including a female campus in Kabojja and the main campus in Mbale, Eastern Uganda.
 
As a way of increasing the university income, IUIU has suggested introducing three new courses. The suggested and approved courses are Bachelor of Biomedical Sciences, Bachelor of Nursing and Bachelor of Public Health.
 
Dr Sengendo says the university has already recruited staff and set up laboratory for biomedical sciences program and that curricula for these programs have been submitted to the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) for accreditation.
 
He adds that the faculty is also finalising designing the curriculum for the bachelor of Public Health, and Master of Public Health programs. IUIU’s medical school increment comes at the time when doctors are on strike protesting over low pay and poor working conditions. The striking doctors claim they are being pay lowly compared to the education investment they incur for the profession.