Female students dominate Makerere graduation

Affirmative action by the Government to encourage more female students to enrol for university education is finally paying off.

For the second year running, Makerere University has registered more female graduands compared to their male counterparts.

According to statistics shared by the university ahead of their 71st graduation, a total of 12,550 students will graduate from Makerere this week. 

They will receive diplomas or undergraduate and postgraduate degrees.

A total of 6,433 graduands accounting for 51%, are female, whereas 6,117 are male. 
The female students dominate business, education and other humanities courses.

FIRM GRIP
However, the male graduands have maintained their grip on the traditional sciences in the fields of medicine and surgery, engineering, computer science, among others. They also continue to dominate the law course.

In addition, an estimated 70% of the graduands under the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) category are male. Of the 108 listed PhD graduands, 70 are male. 

Males also dominated the master’s degree awards. Out of the 1,160 master’s degree graduands, 746 are male.

A total of 11,151 students will graduate with undergraduate degrees, with females numbering 5,919.

The Makerere graduation normally takes place in January, but was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.

The education ministry attributed the big number of female graduands to the deliberate efforts made by the Government, including establishing a secondary school per sub-county and affirmative action.

Alex Kakooza, the education ministry’s permanent secretary, said the ongoing construction of secondary schools by the Government has improved access, to mainly the girl child.

“We are still rolling out the secondary school per sub county model. Each sub county will have at least one government-aided secondary school. This has provided access to mainly girls who could have failed to long distances to school,” he said.

“After several years of investment, we have started recorded more numbers of girls who finish secondary education. This, we think has contributed to the rise,” the permanent secretary said.

Much as he is happy with the trends, Kakooza said the Government doesn’t want to leave the boys behind.

According to the schedule, the graduation will run from May 17 to May 21.
The chancellor of Makerere University, Prof. Ezra Suruma, will preside over the 71st graduation ceremony.

Ritah Namisango, the university’s principal public relations officer, said during its 169th meeting held on March 24, the Senate approved the proposal from the ceremonies committee to host a blended graduation ceremony. 

Consequently, the 71st graduation ceremony will be a “blended” one, with a few university officials, PhD, master’s and first-class undergraduate graduands physically present at the university. The rest of the graduands and their parents/guardians will attend virtually. 

The graduation will be relayed on all Makerere University social media platforms.

COURSE PREFERENCE BY GENDER

Some female-dominated programmes

• Business Statistics
• Plant Breeding and Seed systems
• Business Administration
• Human Resource Management
• Community Psychology
• Industrial and Organisation Psychology
• Library and Information Science
• International Business 
• Travel and Tourism 
• Marketing 
• Human Nutrition 
• Accounting.

Some male-dominated programmes

• Veterinary Medicine 
• Software Engineering
• Engineering 
• Medicine 
• Petroleum Geoscience and Production 
• Medical Radiography 
• Computer Science 
• Law
• Industrial Chemistry 
• Fisheries and Aquaculture