Makerere University funding should be increased to cater for the poor

Jun 13, 2006

SIR — I wish to comment on your editorial of June 7 entitled “maintain funding to universities”. As we welcome the cabinet’s proposal about state-sponsored students to cater for their own welfare and accommodation,

SIR — I wish to comment on your editorial of June 7 entitled “maintain funding to universities”. As we welcome the cabinet’s proposal about state-sponsored students to cater for their own welfare and accommodation, I also urge the government not to reduce its funding to universities, especially Makerere University. But Makerere should utilise the money optimally by allocating it wisely. For instance, some faculties are in a sorry state as they lack various facilities. The sight of empty shelves in their ‘book banks’ is a common one. There are very few computers in the laboratories and there are no generators yet the university conducts evening lectures. The funding of universities should increase because there are more needs but this will help to reduce the tuition paid by private students since they are also Ugandans. Their only ‘fault’ is that they hail from poor unprivileged families. They too are entitled to the national cake as their parents also pay taxes and participate in all other national programmes.

Godfrey Lukyamuzi
Makerere University

SIR — It is amazing how education in Uganda has been so commercialised and how the methods used to help the poor are so ineffective. The district quota system is good but is compromising academic standards. It is good that government-sponsored students are going to pay for their accommodation because ironically most private students are also at the same time the poorest!
There is a distinct correlation between government-sponsorship and affluent background. It is likely that the money collected from the poor students went towards the welfare of the government-sponsored students who had managed to pass very well by virtue of their family backgrounds since they went to good schools. But I request the management of Makerere to use the money they collect from halls of residence very fairly. It should help reduce the burden of privately-sponsored students and also improve some programmes by improving the quality of research.

Alice Kamba
Jinja

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