MAK dilemma: Treading the thorny path to reduce numbers

By Francis Kagolo

SHORTLY after he was announced the new vice-chancellor (VC) last week, Prof. Ddumba-Ssentamu revived what for long had remained a one man’s struggle at Makerere University – the call to reduce student numbers at Uganda’s oldest university. 

 The campaign to reduce student enrolment was first initiated by the University Senate during Prof. Livingstone Luboobi’s 2004-2009 tenure, but it was abandoned and business continued as usual. And, the student population went on swelling, albeit with grave impact on quality. 

Now Prof. Ddumba thinks it is high time the university controlled student enrolment and, where possible, cut it down. “I won’t support increasing student enrolment,” he pledged. 

Ddumba is reacting to a public outcry over the high number of graduates churned out in the past two decades, when the university started admitting private students. 

But the issue remains a thorny path to trek.

Already, the proposal has become an issue of furtive unease among the academic staff over fears that it might reduce the university’s internally generated revenue. 

The private students scheme, the root cause of Makerere’s swelling student population, was introduced in 1994 to offer opportunities to more qualifying students, but also to generate revenue to supplement Government subvention. It is from this revenue that lecturers are paid various allowances, including marking of exams and top-up allowances. 

Fred Omoro, a lecturer of urban planning, says such allowances help cushion academic staff from financial constraints. But he says the allowances have lost value over time, owing to high inflation. 

Fred Omoro, a lecturer of urban planning, says such allowances help cushion academic staff with financial constraints. But he says the allowances have lost value over time, owing to high inflation. 

Outgoing VC Prof. Venasius Baryamureeba, told a press conference last month that reducing enrolment would plunge the university into a dire financial problem, making it fail to break even. The income from private students, thus, contributes heavily to the lecturers’ pay, which is the reason Ddumba’s proposal may face stiff opposition. 

The problem at hand

Makerere has had a phenomenal increase in student population, from 867 in the 1960/1961 academic year to 16,000 in 1997/1998 and 22,000 in 2000/2001. This is a rise of 2,400% over 40 years. 

Today, the university has over 40,000 students. The huge enrolment was, however, not matched by a corresponding increase in facilities, notably lecture halls, seminar rooms and laboratories for science-based subjects, and lecturers. 

The Auditor General recently confirmed an “acute shortage of teaching space at Makerere University”, which has even forced the university to resort to using dining rooms as lecture halls.

As part of ensuring quality education, universities are required to provide facilities, including computers, lecture and tutorial rooms, staff and student common-rooms, equipped with indoor recreation facilities, science and computer labs, library and engineering workshops.

According to the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) guidelines, universities ought to have 2.5 square metres classroom space per student as the ideal standard. The acceptable standard is one square metre; anything below this is unacceptable.

However, at Makerere University, the situation is appalling. For instance, the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences has 1,527 students, with a classroom space per student of 0.8 square metres, according to the AG’s July, 2012 report. 

The College of Humanities, with 7,737 students, has a space allocation per student of 0.7 square metres. Other colleges like education and business and management studies are far below the acceptable space allocation. 

“These challenges are affecting the teaching and learning process, hence, lowering the quality of education offered,” the report says. 

Francis Otto, the higher education officer in charge of quality assurance at NCHE, notes that universities are allowed a standard lecturer–to–student ratio of 1:20 in order to provide quality education. 

However, at Makerere, it is not strange to have a class of over 1,000 students taught by one lecturer, using a public address system. 

Tutorials, which are key to quality higher education, were also disbanded years ago due to high student numbers. 

Prof. Mahmood Mamdani, the director of the Makerere Institute of Social Research, says student admissions were increased recklessly, without corresponding expansion of the infrastructure or human capacities. 

Prof. Mamdani, whose desire to revamp the 90-year-old university compelled him to return home from a lucrative job in the US warns: “The reform was based on producing numbers. 

As enrolment expanded, classes exploded, tutorials ended, and the quality of teaching reached an all–time low.”

According to Sylvia Ssinabulya, the chairperson of the parliamentary committee on education, taking private students as the main source of income has compromised quality at Makerere.

But some critics argue that being a public university, Makerere and other public universities, have an obligation to educate all students, who qualify. 

They argue that Dumba’s proposal may hamper access to higher education if approved. 

Gilbert Gumoshabe, the general secretary of the Makerere University Academic Staff Association, notes that reducing student enrolment would be suicidal to national development.  

“Uganda’s population is increasing. The only way to advance development is empowering the citizens through education, yet we don’t have even 500,000 degree holders in a population of 34 million people,” says Gumoshabe.

He argues that the university should advocate for more funding from the Government to increase space and lecturers’ salaries instead of reducing student enrolment.

“This situation is like having severe famine. You cannot kill your children because of famine. You just have to keep searching for food until the famine subsides,” he argues. 

But Prof. Mamdani challenges such critics to recognise that Makerere is no longer the country’s only university.

“Unlike in the past, we share the responsibility for undergraduate education with a growing number of universities in the country. Our first responsibility as the country’s leading public university is to provide quality undergraduate education,” Mamdani explains in support of manageable student numbers. 

Gumoshabe insists that Makerere University still needs to shoulder the national burden “because the capacity of the other four public universities and the 25 private ones is still limited.”

Besides, he notes, many private universities are profit–oriented and, thus, focus on teaching highly–commercial courses that attract many students.

“Many programmes, especially science courses like veterinary medicine and actuarial sciences, are still exclusively taught at Makerere despite the increasing number of private universities,” reasons Gumoshabe. 

Ssinabulya maintains that the proposal to cut on enrolment is a paradox. 

“As the Government, we want quality education on one side, yet we need more students to acquire higher education,” she says.  This is especially true in a case where Government funding to Makerere has consistently fallen short of the university’s needs like money to fund research.

According to Baryamureeba, the university consecutively ran a deficit budget for several years until 2009, when domestic arrears for three years accumulated to sh26.34b.   

Gumoshabe says the problem could be overcome if the Government prioritised higher education and increased funding to public universities.

“Makerere’s problem is not student numbers, but inadequate funds and infrastructure. The Government should devise means to raise university scholarships annually since the population and tax revenue keep increasing,” he says.

“We need to support Ddumba as we look for ways of enhancing access because quality is the most critical pillar of university education that we must always uphold,” Ssinabulya notes.