Medical students at the University of the West Indies (UWI) will, this September, be forced to fork out 7.4 per cent more for their tuition fees, compared to the other faculties where fees have been increased by 1.3 per cent. This was revealed yesterday by Joe Pereira, deputy principal of the institution. He explained that the fees for the medical faculty have been significantly increased, because of the increased cost of running the faculty. He also noted that the Medical Science Faculty can only accommodate a certain number of students each year, which results in students paying more fees than their counterparts in the other faculties. The deputy principal pointed out that the other faculties had managed to accept more students for September, which significantly helped to keep the tuition fees down. The tuition fees for students pursuing the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) degree in the Faculty of Medical sciences stood at approximately $360,000 last academic year, while students in the other faculties paid approximately $120,000. RECOVERED FROM SHORTFALL Meanwhile, the university has managed to recover from the $709 million budget shortfall which stemmed from a cut in the education budget last year. "We are not in a severe budget cut as we were last year. It should be less problematic now. It gives us the opportunity to do some strategic repositioning and reallocation of resources ..." said Mr. Pereira. He noted that a budget of $5.2 billion has been approved by regional governments and through grants for the Mona Campus. Reprinted from jamaica-gleaner.com