The university maintains that a large part of it funds go towards meeting salaries of its staff and there is hardly any left for other development. The university is in need of funds for its laboratories, equipment and books. This also explains the reason for the university to ask its students to work jointly on dissertations.

The students have agreed that those who are already registered with the university will not have to pay documentation and dissertation fees.

These will apply only to freshers who will be paying Rs 13,600 as general fees, Rs 3000 for dissertation and Rs 800 for documentation. On Tuesday, the students had met the media. They announced they were considering  a demonstration to protest against the proposed increase.

The President of the Student Union, Aartee Bheekarry, expressed her concern about what she called “the lack of transparency in the administration of the university finances. The increase in laboratory fees and dissertation fees will also affect parental purses. We do not understand how the increase in tuition fees is of 20% when inflation level is of 10%.”  She also said that the students are not satisfied with the lack of communication from the university's administration. “We only have occasional contacts with the administration and the increased prices proposed by them are incomprehensible. In fact we learned about the coming fees increase through the press and we are very much dissatisfied with this state of affairs,” said Shakti Daewoo, member of the Student Union.

Bheekarry also commented the decision of increasing the number of students, which she judges absolutely revolting. She attributes the failure of many in their Maths paper last year  to the surplus of students and lack of time for  the lecturers to  look into complaints from students.

Another salient issue which the president of the union evoked was the shortage in the number of supervisors for dissertations. The University of Mauritius also intends to increase its student population by at least 1500.

UoM Fellows
Dr. Cyril Bouloux received the Honorary Fellowship in Medicine from the University of Mauritius on Monday. Among his notable achievements was the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Montpellier and the Ministry of Health and Quality of Life for the training of surgeons.

He has also been the man behind the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the UoM and the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy of Montpellier for the setting up of the Pharmacy Technician Diploma programme aimed mainly at the training of pharmacy dispensers working in hospitals, community centres and private pharmacies.

For his contributions to the University of Mauritius during the last years where he helped the institution, he was appointed Adjunct Associate professor in 2005.

Chit Dukhira, former secretary of the Municipality of Beau Bassin/ Rose Hill, is the first person to be made Honorary Fellow in Public Policy and Administration for his  contribution to  public administration and constitutional reforms . Chit said: “I am pleased that the University has recognised my work and I am proud of the distinction conferred upon me.”