The Sunday News
Harare Bureau
MIDLANDS State University’s Masters in Business Administration (MBA) students have moved to take legal action against the institution for demanding payment of their tuition fees exclusively in United States dollars.
The total fees per semester for the MBA degree programme is US$1 888. MSU’s MBA students are expected to have registered by March 8, and to do this they are required to have paid at least half of a semester’s fees.
The students have engaged Wintertons Legal Practitioners to handle the matter.
In a letter dated March 1, 2024, directed to MSU’s Vice Chancellor Professor Victor Muzvidziwa, Wintertons Legal Practitioners have given the institution a 48-hour notice to give the students an option to settle the fees in the local currency, or it will approach the High Court.
“Demanding payment in United States dollars is clearly in contravention of the law and should not be allowed to stand.
“We have been instructed to demand, as we hereby do, that within 48 hours, you should extend to our clients the option to settle their fees in local currency.
“In this regard, our clients hereby tender payment of the requisite fees in local currency. This is in keeping with the obtaining position of the law. Should you not respond to our letter within 48 hours, we shall be approaching the High Court on an urgent basis for appropriate relief,” reads part of the letter.
Last August, the Government — through the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education — gave universities and colleges the green light to peg tuition fees in US dollars. However, the students maintain that being allowed to peg academic and tuition fees in US dollars does not “give universities the right to demand US dollar payments”.
By the time of publication, the students said the university had not granted them the option to settle the fees in the local currency.
Earlier in January, High Court judge Justice Gladys Mhuri ordered Harare Polytechnic to stop demanding payment of tuition and other levies exclusively in US dollars, and to accept payments from students in the local currency, at the prevailing interbank rate.
This was after Harare Polytechnic students had filed an application on January 25, in response to a January 12 circular by the college demanding payment of fees exclusively in US dollars.
