Makerere University halls or holes of residence?
Jun 10, 2007
HE tiptoes to the bathroom, struggling not to get his feet wet from a ‘river’ on the floor. Joseph Kalyabunjanju is rushing to have a shower. He is late for a lecture, but the flooded bathroom corridor is frustrating him. <br>
By Stephen Ssenkaaba
HE tiptoes to the bathroom, struggling not to get his feet wet from a ‘river’ on the floor. Joseph Kalyabunjanju is rushing to have a shower. He is late for a lecture, but the flooded bathroom corridor is frustrating him.
“The pipes broke down five days ago and they have not been fixed,†he told me.
The water is beginning to slowly spill into students’ rooms near the bathroom, yet nothing is being done to help.
“We have reported to the warden and we have been told there is no money to fix the problem,†says Mahmood Mutoki, who cannot hide his indignation, after opening a tap to wash his face and only a few drops come out. “Not again!†he thumps his fist on the white porcelain sink.
Mutoki says water shortage is a regular occurrence.
Such are the facilities in the halls of residence at Makerere University — failing, unreliable, poorly maintained and on the verge of collapse.
Constructed more than three decades ago, many of them have not been refurbished in a long time.
Lumumba Hall had one of its blocks closed about three years ago. Once accommodating over 200 students, Block C had become uninhabitable, with a broken drainage system, cracking walls and poor sanitation. It has not been repaired since.
Constrained by space, the hall has since stopped admitting freshmen. Though fairly habitable, blocks B and A are suffocating under the pressure of over 600 occupants, some of whom were transferred from Block C.
Ben Mushega, the warden, says the renovation of Block C alone, is estimated at sh600m, while the complete overhaul of a single block requires about sh2.4b.
Elsewhere, resident students lament about the same deplorable living conditions.
“We live under threat of an epidemic outbreak. Some of our toilets do not flush and they sometimes flood,†complains a student from Africa Hall, one of three ladies’ halls.
Decent at the outside, the hall’s interior is crumbling, has broken water sinks, broken windows and congested rooms.
A dark damp watercourse streams down the brown concrete walls at the back toward the entrance of Block E, a sign of a major leakage from above.
Save for a beautifully designed monument at the entrance of Africa Hall, little remains to show for the glory of the so called ‘Ladies’ Home’.
With its fresh green lawns and clean pavements, University Hall (UH) has one of the most beautiful compounds at the campus. But its interior tells a different story — of rotting ceiling boards prominently hanging down the roofs, missing burglarproofing, broken windows and doors. Flats three and four, accommodating First Year students, are overcrowded with six to seven students in rooms meant for three.
The situation in UH, Africa and Lumumba halls reflects the deteriorating conditions in other halls. A dilapidated common room in Nsibirwa Hall, a chaotic dining hall in Nkrumah, poorly maintained bathrooms and lavatories in Complex Hall and malfunctioning plumbing systems in Mary Stuart Hall. Even the relatively good-looking Livingstone Hall suffers faulty plumbing and irregular water supply.
‘Not in use’, ‘Does not flush’, are common notices on toilet doors in many halls. This is a sign of insufficient water supply or broken facilities.
Despite this, students use these facilities. What used to be halls are gradually turning into ‘holes’ of residence.
“We are doing our best under the circumstances. It’s just that there is not sufficient government funding to maintain the halls,†says John Ekudu, the Dean of Students.
With more than sh28b of the sh34b annual government subvention fund to Makerere spent on the wage bill, the university has found itself in a crisis, unable to finance its other departments.
Today, the university is only able to pay for feeding, electricity and water to cover sponsored students.
With no money to meet daily maintenance and repair costs, Makerere now depends on privately generated funds to run the halls.
Halls generate their income from three major sources: Private students’ accommodation fees, business ventures (canteens, photocopiers, hair salons, stationery bureaux, dining halls and gardens for hire). There is also a 4% levy off the sh50,000 registration fee from every attached private student.
Resident students also contribute sh4,000 each every semester to facilitate senior common room, sports, hall and guild activities.
On average, each hall generates about sh10m to sh15m from business enterprises, about sh50m to sh65m from resident private students’ accommodation fees (depending on the number of students) and sh4m to sh7m from the 4% levy off the registration fees from attached private students.
In a nutshell, halls generate between sh60m and sh85m every semester (depending on the number of private students and the business opportunities/activities in a particular hall).
Despite being hubs for thriving businesses, the halls retain a fraction of their revenue. All the revenue collected from the halls is remitted to the central pool, from which each hall is allocated its share. Each hall retains 70% of the total income generated and only 19% of their return from private students’ accommodation fees.
The wardens say this money is too little to finance halls, whose budget is over sh60m every semester.
“Not only is it insufficient, it does not come in time,†says Ben Mushega, the Lumuba Hall warden .
“It has been very difficult to plan when we receive only a fraction of our total budget (about sh64m),†says Hassan Lutaaya, the UH warden.
According to a survey, over 50% of the budgetary allocation to halls is spent on repairing the faulty plumbing. The rest goes to electric repairs and a little maintenance.
As the structures in many halls reveal, there are hardly any funds spent on facelifts and replacement of broken facilities.
In the face of declining government funding, the need for the Government and the university to employ alternative funding strategies for university accommodation has become increasingly inevitable.
Privatising halls is one of the measures being looked at as a likely alternative to improving service delivery in the halls, though the idea is unwelcome among students and others.
“It is not practical, not least because it will alienate many poor students,†says Gerald Karuhanga, the outgoing Guild President.
Like Karuhanga, many students feel let down by a government that is becoming increasingly aloof to the needs of its own university and using privatisation as an avenue to “sell†Makerere.
But the Government dismisses this allegation.
“Well knowing the financial constraints of the average Ugandan parent, the Government has gone out of its way to subsidise students in public universities.
Students at Makerere pay much less than what they actually should be paying. The Government’s effort to make education affordable should therefore be appreciated, bearing in mind that no government can ever have enough money to entirely fund its social services,†says Elizabeth Gabona, the commissioner for higher education.
Talking about privatisation, the minister of state for higher education, Gabriel Opio says: “Even if the halls were privatised, the Government will not stop funding Makerere,†he said.
He added that privatisation could take several forms which, if well implemented, could work. He, however, said the final decision to privatise or not privatise halls, rests with the University Council.
He said with the World Bank policies on education funding in developing nations shifting in favour of higher education, solutions to the funding crisis in public universities will be found.
Critics, however, say although funds from private sources may constitute complementary financing for higher education, its impact may not be felt in the absence of practical mechanisms to facilitate the many needy students.
“There should be consideration for a loan scheme to enable poor students access university education as is the case in Tanzania and Kenya,†says Dr Augustine Nuwagaba, a consultant on development and poverty eradication. There is a concern, however, that the loan scheme may not apply here.
Over the years, Makerere University has experienced soaring student numbers as a result of the introduction of the private scheme. This, however, has not been matched with increase in facilities.
It is telling that more than 10 years after the introduction of the private scheme, Makerere is still grappling with funding problems. The issue, then, is not whether or not accomodation should be privatised.
HE tiptoes to the bathroom, struggling not to get his feet wet from a ‘river’ on the floor. Joseph Kalyabunjanju is rushing to have a shower. He is late for a lecture, but the flooded bathroom corridor is frustrating him.
“The pipes broke down five days ago and they have not been fixed,†he told me.
The water is beginning to slowly spill into students’ rooms near the bathroom, yet nothing is being done to help.
“We have reported to the warden and we have been told there is no money to fix the problem,†says Mahmood Mutoki, who cannot hide his indignation, after opening a tap to wash his face and only a few drops come out. “Not again!†he thumps his fist on the white porcelain sink.
Mutoki says water shortage is a regular occurrence.
Such are the facilities in the halls of residence at Makerere University — failing, unreliable, poorly maintained and on the verge of collapse.
Constructed more than three decades ago, many of them have not been refurbished in a long time.
Lumumba Hall had one of its blocks closed about three years ago. Once accommodating over 200 students, Block C had become uninhabitable, with a broken drainage system, cracking walls and poor sanitation. It has not been repaired since.
Constrained by space, the hall has since stopped admitting freshmen. Though fairly habitable, blocks B and A are suffocating under the pressure of over 600 occupants, some of whom were transferred from Block C.
Ben Mushega, the warden, says the renovation of Block C alone, is estimated at sh600m, while the complete overhaul of a single block requires about sh2.4b.
Elsewhere, resident students lament about the same deplorable living conditions.
“We live under threat of an epidemic outbreak. Some of our toilets do not flush and they sometimes flood,†complains a student from Africa Hall, one of three ladies’ halls.
Decent at the outside, the hall’s interior is crumbling, has broken water sinks, broken windows and congested rooms.
A dark damp watercourse streams down the brown concrete walls at the back toward the entrance of Block E, a sign of a major leakage from above.
Save for a beautifully designed monument at the entrance of Africa Hall, little remains to show for the glory of the so called ‘Ladies’ Home’.
With its fresh green lawns and clean pavements, University Hall (UH) has one of the most beautiful compounds at the campus. But its interior tells a different story — of rotting ceiling boards prominently hanging down the roofs, missing burglarproofing, broken windows and doors. Flats three and four, accommodating First Year students, are overcrowded with six to seven students in rooms meant for three.
The situation in UH, Africa and Lumumba halls reflects the deteriorating conditions in other halls. A dilapidated common room in Nsibirwa Hall, a chaotic dining hall in Nkrumah, poorly maintained bathrooms and lavatories in Complex Hall and malfunctioning plumbing systems in Mary Stuart Hall. Even the relatively good-looking Livingstone Hall suffers faulty plumbing and irregular water supply.
‘Not in use’, ‘Does not flush’, are common notices on toilet doors in many halls. This is a sign of insufficient water supply or broken facilities.
Despite this, students use these facilities. What used to be halls are gradually turning into ‘holes’ of residence.
“We are doing our best under the circumstances. It’s just that there is not sufficient government funding to maintain the halls,†says John Ekudu, the Dean of Students.
With more than sh28b of the sh34b annual government subvention fund to Makerere spent on the wage bill, the university has found itself in a crisis, unable to finance its other departments.
Today, the university is only able to pay for feeding, electricity and water to cover sponsored students.
With no money to meet daily maintenance and repair costs, Makerere now depends on privately generated funds to run the halls.
Halls generate their income from three major sources: Private students’ accommodation fees, business ventures (canteens, photocopiers, hair salons, stationery bureaux, dining halls and gardens for hire). There is also a 4% levy off the sh50,000 registration fee from every attached private student.
Resident students also contribute sh4,000 each every semester to facilitate senior common room, sports, hall and guild activities.
On average, each hall generates about sh10m to sh15m from business enterprises, about sh50m to sh65m from resident private students’ accommodation fees (depending on the number of students) and sh4m to sh7m from the 4% levy off the registration fees from attached private students.
In a nutshell, halls generate between sh60m and sh85m every semester (depending on the number of private students and the business opportunities/activities in a particular hall).
Despite being hubs for thriving businesses, the halls retain a fraction of their revenue. All the revenue collected from the halls is remitted to the central pool, from which each hall is allocated its share. Each hall retains 70% of the total income generated and only 19% of their return from private students’ accommodation fees.
The wardens say this money is too little to finance halls, whose budget is over sh60m every semester.
“Not only is it insufficient, it does not come in time,†says Ben Mushega, the Lumuba Hall warden .
“It has been very difficult to plan when we receive only a fraction of our total budget (about sh64m),†says Hassan Lutaaya, the UH warden.
According to a survey, over 50% of the budgetary allocation to halls is spent on repairing the faulty plumbing. The rest goes to electric repairs and a little maintenance.
As the structures in many halls reveal, there are hardly any funds spent on facelifts and replacement of broken facilities.
In the face of declining government funding, the need for the Government and the university to employ alternative funding strategies for university accommodation has become increasingly inevitable.
Privatising halls is one of the measures being looked at as a likely alternative to improving service delivery in the halls, though the idea is unwelcome among students and others.
“It is not practical, not least because it will alienate many poor students,†says Gerald Karuhanga, the outgoing Guild President.
Like Karuhanga, many students feel let down by a government that is becoming increasingly aloof to the needs of its own university and using privatisation as an avenue to “sell†Makerere.
But the Government dismisses this allegation.
“Well knowing the financial constraints of the average Ugandan parent, the Government has gone out of its way to subsidise students in public universities.
Students at Makerere pay much less than what they actually should be paying. The Government’s effort to make education affordable should therefore be appreciated, bearing in mind that no government can ever have enough money to entirely fund its social services,†says Elizabeth Gabona, the commissioner for higher education.
Talking about privatisation, the minister of state for higher education, Gabriel Opio says: “Even if the halls were privatised, the Government will not stop funding Makerere,†he said.
He added that privatisation could take several forms which, if well implemented, could work. He, however, said the final decision to privatise or not privatise halls, rests with the University Council.
He said with the World Bank policies on education funding in developing nations shifting in favour of higher education, solutions to the funding crisis in public universities will be found.
Critics, however, say although funds from private sources may constitute complementary financing for higher education, its impact may not be felt in the absence of practical mechanisms to facilitate the many needy students.
“There should be consideration for a loan scheme to enable poor students access university education as is the case in Tanzania and Kenya,†says Dr Augustine Nuwagaba, a consultant on development and poverty eradication. There is a concern, however, that the loan scheme may not apply here.
Over the years, Makerere University has experienced soaring student numbers as a result of the introduction of the private scheme. This, however, has not been matched with increase in facilities.
It is telling that more than 10 years after the introduction of the private scheme, Makerere is still grappling with funding problems. The issue, then, is not whether or not accomodation should be privatised.