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29 March 2024

Students protest hike in Ajman University fees

Published
By Staff

Ajman University’s decision to hike tution fees suddenly without any prior
announcement has shocked students and parents alike, triggering a wave
of disappointment and protests among students.

Describing it as unjustified and uncalled for, various groups of students are airing their resentment through different medium,including through social networking websites like Facebook, Arabic daily Al Khaleej reported.

Students are unanimous at least on one point that they were not made
aware of the change in advance and argue that their parents are not
prepared for the hike, especially due to the fact that the university
has also changed the fee payment scheme.

In the current scheme the students had the convenience of paying Dh2,000 in the beginning of an academic year followed by regular installments which would be completed before the term end examination.

However, according to the new decision, 50 per cent of the tution fee should be paid at the time of registration, while the remaining within the next two weeks, putting a huge pressure on the parents.

Protesting against the decision, the students are demanding the current mechanism to be retained, threatening to call a general strike if the university management doesn’t agree.

The faculty that would be most affected by the decision is dental, where the fee of accredited hours have been increased to Dh150 per hour while the lab fees would be Dh500 per hour, and Dh50 per hour for other specializations.

What has angered the students most is the fact that the decision was not announced at a time when they were choosing their subjects. “Had we known the hike in fees we would have chosen the subjects according to their affordability,” said an angry student.

However, the varsity management has justified their decision, saying that this is the first such increase in more than two years and the “University was obliged to take a decision in the event of growing expenses and there was no other way to fulfill its obligations but through a hike in fee.”

Thamer Saeed Salman, Vice President for Finance and Administration, at
the Ajman University said “since the start of the financial crisis the university did not raise the fees. we took into account the circumstances of students and their parents, and we put pressure on ourselves to cover the costs of the university and are committed to our obligations regarding the provision of excellent education.”

He said the increase was not as much as it was made out to be, because
the fees is still not as much as other universities charge.