Makerere deputy VC candidates vow to tackle plagiarism

By Raymond Baguma

The fight against plagiarism among students and lecturers of Makerere was an overriding issue Wednesday as candidates vying to become the next deputy vice chancellor publicly defended their candidacy.

Prof. Lillian Tibatemwa-Ekirikubinza made a bid to retain her job as deputy vice chancellor.

She faces competition from three other candidates who include Prof. Grace Bantebya Kyomuhendo, associate professor, Peter Baguma and Prof. Abasi Kiyimba.

Each of the candidates made 20-minute public presentations at the Main Building (Ivory Tower), followed by 25 minutes of answering questions from the audience.

The public presentations were part of the process of selecting candidates who will be forwarded to the Senate to get the next deputy vice chancellor for academic affairs.

Each of the four candidates said that they would advance strategies to enable the promotion of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) in learning and teaching processes at the 90-year-old university.

Prof. Kiyimba promised to address academic plagiarism by students and lecturers as well as malpractices by students during exams.

He also promised that his reign would see an improvement in student welfare, academic research in science courses as well as the humanities.

Prof. Tibatemwa said that there have been cases of plagiarism at the university and there is a policy at the university on Intellectual Property, which also deals with plagiarism.

Without mentioning names however, Tibatemwa said that investigations have been carried out in the past, following complaints of plagiarism and reports have been presented to the university's appointments board for action.

Unveiling his plan, Prof. Baguma promised to ensure retention of teaching staff, training of academicians, as well as implementing modern teaching and distance learning through the writing of modules and e-learning.

Prof. Bantebya said she would improve on academic leadership by focusing on staff mentoring, addressing the student to lecturer ratio, more funding to research.

She said that she would initiate the signing of Memoranda of Understanding with private sector organisations to offer internship placements to Makerere students.

According to her, there is need to consider having two intakes every year and that with this, the university would develop infrastructure to handle student numbers.

Prof. Kiyimba promised to improve staff appraisal by putting in place a rewards system for good performance.

 He also vowed to train academic staff in reviewing programmes and curricula, and improving internal communication within the university.

There is need to develop strategies for Makerere University to better communicate academic research beyond the peer-reviewed journals, thinks Prof. Tibatemwa.

As such, she pledged to advance the skills of university dons in public speaking, developing policy briefs, and media relations to complement the existing formal channels of research dissemination.

Makerere University currently offers 82 undergraduate programmes, out of which only 15 programmes are exclusive to Makerere.

In her view, student intake should be cut so that students are taken up by other universities offering similar programmes.