Uganda’s limping universities

Mar 04, 2008

THE Education Ministry of last week released the 2007 A’level results, indicating an increase in the number of students who qualify for university entry. But are universities ready for them? <b>Conan Businge</b> and <b>Carol Natukunda</b> write.

THE Education Ministry of last week released the 2007 A’level results, indicating an increase in the number of students who qualify for university entry. But are universities ready for them? Conan Businge and Carol Natukunda write.

AS the sun sets, a swarm of students storms lecture rooms, scrambling for seats. Ten minutes later, the room gets packed, leaving many of them standing.

From the day programme, to private evening lectures, that is how far Makerere University has come to accommodate thousands of students. The same picture is reflected in other universities.

It is not all about space and equipment, but also the universities’ ability to recruit the required staff to produce the required standard of graduates.
With this year’s sky-rocketing number of A’level graduates, the wound will have to bleed afresh.

Out of the 53,720 candidates who passed, about 34,000 may proceed to university. The National Council of Higher Education (NCHE) states that any student who attains two principal passes qualifies for university education. This is an increase of 8,195 from 2006 figures. But the space and lecturers are not enough.

A report on universities of Uganda by an Irish team, notes that there is a poor staff-student ratio, lack of finance and low teaching standards.
Higher education state minister Gabriel Opio says 4,000 students will be admitted to public universities on government sponsorship. In addition, all 25 universities together have the capacity to admit 30,000 on private sponsorship. Therefore, over 19,700 students who qualify for university entry will be admitted.

Those who miss university education have the option of doing diploma courses, but these can absorb only a small fraction. State-owned technical and vocational institutes and teacher education colleges can only admit 2,000 students. The transition from secondary to tertiary education has been low, with less than half of A’level candidates joining tertiary education.

On staffing, the overall tertiary staff/student ratio in 2006 was 1:24, against 2005’s 1:22, according to a new NCHE report.
Makerere and Kyambogo had 1:33 ratios and Nkumba had 1:32, which are far below the national average. Makerere University Business School was at 1:47. So has been the trend for the last two years.

The ideal ratios, according to NCHE, are 1:15, good at 1:20, acceptable at 1:25, can be improved at 1:40 or unacceptable (1:50 and above).
According to the Uganda Tertiary Education Sector report of 2004, the staff-student ratios range from 1:2 to 56, with most ratios lying at 1:18–20.
The same report says: “Some people claim that universities with low staff-student ratio have better qualities of teaching and learning; however, when the student-lecturer ratio becomes very low, the unit cost of running the university becomes high, and the institution may not be financially viable. Mbarara University is a case in point.”

The issue is complicated since most of the available staff are not even qualified to lecture. Most institutions are below the expected targets by NCHE.
The face of Uganda’s public universities has stagnated dramatically, as there is an acute need for professors. A university should have at least 60% of its staff as PhD holders, and less than 10% is unacceptable, according to NCHE. But an analysis of top four universities – Makerere, Mbarara, Kyambogo and Gulu reveals otherwise. In all of them, the number of PhD holders has dropped drastically. Kyambogo is one of the universities that are grossly under-staffed. It has no professor on its academic staff, according to a report by the cabinet committee in the probe of strikes and unrest in the university.
“There are also only 25 (17%) lecturers who hold doctorates, among the 147 academic staff. It is required that a lecturer holds a doctorate,” the report added.
The statistics are contained in a 2006 NCHE report titled ‘The State of Higher Education in Uganda’. The situation is worse for private universities, with some universities having as few as one or two professors.

The issue becomes more glaring when one analyses the specific academic units. For instance, according to Makerere University’s 2004 annual report, the School of Education had 57 full-time academic staff out of whom only four are professors and three associate professors. In the Faculty of Arts, there were only 15 professors and 19 associate professors out of 176 teaching staff.

Although most university authorities are elusive, the issue has triggered off emotions from educators, who fear the shortage of professors will affect the quality of higher education.

Dr. Maria Gorreti Nassuna from Makerere’s Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, says: “We have two lecturers where there should be seven; they now teach 30 hours a week or more. How can they constantly assess the students?” Because the Government declared that lecturers must have PhDs, faculty members go away to study, and “if they like it better there, they don’t come back!” she says.

Ruth Mukama, a lecturer at Makerere agrees that all departments are “grossly understaffed. The Government has put an embargo on salaries, so we can only recruit part-timers.”
The availability of full-time lecturers has also dropped from 3,311 in 2005 to 2,999 in 2006, according to the 2006 NCHE report.

In 2006, full-time academic staff constituted only 45% of all members. This represents a drop of 15%. However, according to the vice-chancellors, many full-time academic staff spread their hands thin on the ground by teaching at more than one institution.

Despite their usefulness, part-time staff do not participate in core activities of institutions. The NCHE notes that lack of committed service and loyalty to one institution impacts negatively on the delivery of quality education and commitment to the realisation of the institutional visions and missions.

Why universities are understaffed?
“There is poor pay. All you find in the bank is sh1.5m for professors, while for associate professors it is sh1.2m. This is too little,” says Dr. Augustus Nuwagaba, the chairperson of the Makerere University Academic Staff Association.
He says there are also problems in promotions: “This is what is discouraging the young people to go on with their studies, because promotions are not straightforward.”

Part of the problem has also been attributed to brain drain. “Lecturers are looking for greener pastures,” says NCHE’s assistant director Yeko Acato.
Some, however, argue that many campuses are in areas where housing costs are far above most professors’ means, making recruiting difficult. And because the new generation of professors may bring with it a new generation of skills and technology, universities will need to spend heavily to improve support and staff systems.

“Professors do not only need salary. They look at themselves as high and expensive,” says one retired professor of engineering.
Acato also worries about the fate of research and publication in universities. Professors are supposed to provide guidance and assistance to junior staff to develop their teaching and research capacity.

As a solution, huge financial investment in staff development is required to ensure that more lecturers go for further studies. He warns private universities to raise their standards.

“While we may give a grace period, we have a checklist of quality indicators ranging from ideal to unacceptable. If you are always below standard, then you have a problem,” Acato says.

If the universities cannot offer students quality education, it will be a case of getting qualifications for qualifications’ sake, a trend that will bury the country deeper in despondency.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});