East African ministers pledge to scrap visa fees, align tuition rates

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OPINION

By Carolyne Muyama

Last week Uganda hosted the 1^st Regional Ministerial Conference on the East African Community Common Higher Education Area (EACHEA) that brought together Ministers of Education, Vice Chancellors and other higher education leaders and regulators, student leaders, industry and development partners from across the East African Community (EAC) to deliberate on building a Common Higher Education Area (CHEA) for the region.

The East African Community Common Higher Education Area is a regional initiative declared by East African Heads of State in May 2017 to harmonise higher education and training systems across Partner States, and foster the free movement of students, teachers, and labour.

The inaugural conference held in Kampala sought to deliberate on progress, challenges, and strategies for the accelerated operationalisation of the EACHEA, in fulfilment of each member state’s obligations under EAC policy and legal frameworks.

Higher education is key in producing skilled, innovative, and adaptable human capital necessary for driving the region’s socio-economic transformation and accelerating deeper EAC regional integration.

Right now, the region is grappling with differences in academic systems, accreditation, and recognition of qualifications that have long hindered student and staff mobility, research collaboration, and workforce integration. By aligning policies and harmonising standards, the EAC aims to create a seamless education space that matches global trends and strengthens the region’s competitiveness.

I remember when I was in high school many years ago, one of my good friends was from Tanzania, and that’s where she had studied her lower secondary school from.

When she came to Uganda, her first crucial task was to learn English, which was essential for her to understand what was being taught and communicate with teachers and other students.

As she picked up some English from me, it was an opportunity for me to improve my Kiswahili, which I was studying as a subject in school. She told me she had come to study high school from Uganda because then it would be easy for her to get into a university here.

When I went through the objectives of EACHEA, I remembered my Tanzanian high school friend and her experience as a Tanzanian studying in Uganda.

I imagined how seamless to would have been for her to get into the education system of Uganda if education was harmonised across East Africa. For students, the creation of a common higher education area will ensure that their academic qualifications are recognised across all EAC member states.

This means a degree earned in Uganda, for example, will hold equal value in Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, thereby easing movement for study, work, and professional growth. EACHEA also aims to adopt English, Kiswahili and French as official languages for easy communication across borders.

During the conference deliberations, participants from different universities across the region described the challenges they go through to access opportunities in East Africa and the continent at large because of the differences in policies and encumbrances of labour mobility.

With EACHEA, teaching staff stand to benefit through expanded opportunities for exchange, research collaboration, and professional development. Harmonised standards will also encourage institutions to pool resources, share expertise, and build stronger regional networks, leading to improved quality of education across the board.

On a broader level, this cooperation is vital for the region’s development. A unified higher education framework enhances human capital, attracts investment, and strengthens East Africa’s bargaining power in the global knowledge economy. It also supports regional integration goals under the EAC by fostering cultural exchange and unity among young people.

When opening the conference, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni hailed the EAC ministers of education for their effort to harmonise higher education across the region.

He said EAC integration is essential for five reasons outlined as prosperity, socio-economic transformation, Pan-Africanism, democracy and security. He stressed that education must support socio-economic transformation by equipping citizens to benefit from regional markets.

The EAC Ministers of Education pledged to fast-track alignment of national higher education systems with regional frameworks to promote academic excellence and seamless mobility of students and professionals, Mutual Recognition of Qualifications across the region, to harmonize Policy and Legal framework, Digital Transformation by blended learning and virtual exchange programmes, design innovative funding models to strengthen access, mobility, and research, to improve access to higher education for marginalised groups and promote gender equality national councils and they directed commissions for higher education to engage relevant national authorities to remove visa fees for EAC students and professionals and to enforce the directive that EAC nationals pay the same tuition fees as locals, charged in local currency.

The Ministers agreed that the Regional Ministerial Conference will be held biennially to monitor progress, share best practices, and set new directions.

The next conference will be hosted by the Republic of Rwanda in 2027.

The writer works with Uganda Media Centre