Makerere's audit of qualifications sets the pace for other institutions

Sep 27, 2017

A comprehensive audit of the qualification awarding procedure at Makerere University is a very credible thing to do. Audits happen everywhere in the world. Audits must be done whenever something amiss is identified in a system.

MAKERERE UNIVERSITY | AUDIT

By Simon J. Mone

After seeing its image ride on rutty road, Uganda's premier University has decided to conduct an audit of qualifications that it has awarded in the last so many years. The academic institution is keen to restore and uphold its good image.

This is the perfect opportunity for Makerere to get to the bottom of the matter that has seen many people wondering about what could have happened to beloved ivory tower. With one debate after another about what has gone wrong. It has to be said that everything good or bad in our world starts with suspicion.

As we saw, after that, a few names were mentioned. And some high-ranking tutors got suspended for trying to make education look so cheap. But until the real findings have been arrived at beyond reasonable doubt, we continue to give the benefit of the doubt. Let's not point fingers towards particular directions already.

Even with the news and revelations of all the things going on at the moment. The young girls have come out to complain about the exchange of marks for some tangible things. The human weakness driving the urge to get top-quality grades even when one does not deserve, has meant that students and their lecturers get tempted into unethical behaviours. Such behaviours do not meet congruence and quality ambition of such a respected education institution.

So we will keep our eyes and ears ajar. Hopefully in the end, the public will be happy with the way Makerere University goes about dealing with the audit findings. Most importantly to us will be the how Makerere manages corrective actions of findings. Among the glitches, answers will be to immediately stop the bad happenings in the long-term future of the university.

A comprehensive audit of the qualification awarding procedure at the university is a very credible thing to do. Audits happen everywhere in the world. Audits must be done whenever something amiss is identified in a system. This is in order to find all the answers to the puzzle of missing or unethically granted marks to students. It restores confidence in the public, about the quality processes of an institution. And gives employers the assurance that the employees they have on their paid ranks cut the aptitude to output the performance indicators bestowed unto them.

So for that we salute Makerere University management. But this is also an opportune time for the doubting employers to quietly send their employees' credentials to institutions that qualified them for verification. We need employees whom we can entrust to deliver quality results at the workplace. We do not require alumni who are going to tarnish names of universities that made them.

Think of a politician who has come through by way of altered marks. What this fellow will do to votes. Think of a doctor who has come through the system by way of a dodgy education process. What this fellow is going to do with drugs in Government hospitals. Such a person is going to divert resources meant for hospitals to their private schemes. Such a fellow is going to steal grant money meant to treat TB, Malaria and so on.

So, academic results need to be of high integrity, like that of the fellow who marks, compiles and archives. At this stage in time when our country's professionals are nursing high levels of corruption, of lack of transparency and of all sorts of evils, institutions need to guard the marks with the jealousy deserved.

We need citizens that are going to be honest in their professional conduct. And this is always a function of the education path through which they underwent. Makerere University has taken a bold step that must be emulated by other institutions. Hopefully they don't buckle under the weight of influential people.

The writer is a civil engineer

 

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