Don’t Institutionalise Tribalism
Apr 22, 2003
MAKERERE University is due to begin a district quota admission regime when the new academic year commences in September.
MAKERERE University is due to begin a district quota admission regime when the new academic year commences in September.
The system aims at giving everyone of the 56 districts in the country a portion of the 2,800 state scholarships as a way of ironing out inequalities. The champions of this new system, mainly politicians, want regional balance, arguing that there are very many districts that have not sent any students to our premier university.
How misconceived. The problem with affirmative action, especially in situations that evolved naturally and not forcefully (like apartheid in South Africa and America’s segregation), is that it punishes merit.
What makes it even more ridiculous is that the selection would not be done on the fairly more understandable basis of rural versus urban schools, but on tribal grounds. For instance, a Mugisu studying at Budo would be admitted on a Mbale district quota card, irrespective of his marks and the relative advantage he would have got in a top school.
What message are we sending out? We are telling people that they have been admitted to university because of their tribal origins. These same people would come out and be the new policy makers, and what is to stop them making policies of tribal quotas, conveniently called districts, in the public service?
The new system is destructive: it is dragging Makerere down, it is perpetuating a culture of mediocrity and it is institutionalising tribalism.
The inequalities can better be addressed by getting the districts, in the new decentralisation structure, identify bright but disadvantaged students, and paying bursaries for them on Makerere’s private students scheme.
Ends
The system aims at giving everyone of the 56 districts in the country a portion of the 2,800 state scholarships as a way of ironing out inequalities. The champions of this new system, mainly politicians, want regional balance, arguing that there are very many districts that have not sent any students to our premier university.
How misconceived. The problem with affirmative action, especially in situations that evolved naturally and not forcefully (like apartheid in South Africa and America’s segregation), is that it punishes merit.
What makes it even more ridiculous is that the selection would not be done on the fairly more understandable basis of rural versus urban schools, but on tribal grounds. For instance, a Mugisu studying at Budo would be admitted on a Mbale district quota card, irrespective of his marks and the relative advantage he would have got in a top school.
What message are we sending out? We are telling people that they have been admitted to university because of their tribal origins. These same people would come out and be the new policy makers, and what is to stop them making policies of tribal quotas, conveniently called districts, in the public service?
The new system is destructive: it is dragging Makerere down, it is perpetuating a culture of mediocrity and it is institutionalising tribalism.
The inequalities can better be addressed by getting the districts, in the new decentralisation structure, identify bright but disadvantaged students, and paying bursaries for them on Makerere’s private students scheme.
Ends