Makerere graduation eludes many

Jan 12, 2003

MOST students look forward to the day when their efforts will be rewarded by an academic award. Anything that deters them from achieving this is rendered betrayal.

By Fortunate Ahimbisibwe

MOST students look forward to the day when their efforts will be rewarded by an academic award. They work tirelessly to achieve this long-standing dream. Anything that deters them from achieving this is rendered betrayal.

This, however, will be the case for several Makerere University students who will miss the 42nd graduation ceremony this Friday.

Reason? Some of the results are missing or the respective supervisor has not yet marked the dissertation. Or worse still, the results were misplaced.

It becomes even more confusing when you cannot get an explanation from any one. The only explanation is a note on the notice board reading; “only those whose names appear on this list will graduate. This is the updated and final list of the graduands.”

Whereas there are genuine cases of students who miss graduation because of missing results, others simply do not fulfil the requirements, University officials say.

Officials say that some of the reasons are beyond their control. For example, the postponement of the ceremony which was supposed to take place in October.

“It was not our intention to delay the ceremony but we had to wait until the relevant organs of the university were put in place. As for the missing marks, that is unavoidable because of the numbers,” says an official in the Arts Faculty.

The students who were supposed to graduate in October have had to wait over three months, some only to find that their names do not appear on the lists.

The panic-stricken students are already moving around their respective faculties in an effort to check if their names are on the graduation lists.

In the Arts Faculty, only 636 students will graduate out of about 1,200.

Academic Registrar, Bob Sebastian Ngobi explains: “We can not have all the students graduate at the same time. The number is too much for us to handle at the same time. So we decided that it would be a first come first served basis.”

Ngobi adds,: “This is not the end, the students who won’t be able to graduate this time have yet another chance in March or April.”

He, however, explained that not all students who miss graduation have missing marks. For some, it is failure to fulfil the requirements.

“Some of the students could have failed a certain course unit and may therefore not graduate,” he says.

The Arts Faculty “updated and final lists of the graduands” indicate that only 62 students from the Mass Communication class will graduate out of 143, Development Studies, 173 out of over 200, BA Arts-178 out of 200, Secretarial studies-25, BA Sociology 88.

Sources within the faculty, however, said that although it is true that some students would miss out because of results related problems, others would miss because they have failed.

But, “Most of the students will miss because their results are distorted. They will have to wait until their results are sorted out,” a source said.

Things are not any better at the Nakawa based Business School. The list also shows that only 184 students of Business Administration will graduate and 323 for Bachelor of Commerce.
All these small numbers are a reflection of a bigger problem that the university is currently facing.
An Arts student who completed her course last year and expected to graduate was shocked to discover that her dissertation had not been marked. Reason? Her supervisor is reportedly out of the country.
“I came here to check for my name on the list only to be told that my supervisor is out of the country. Now, I have got wait until he returns,” she says in a low tone.
Only 3,000 students are expected to graduate in the first round. The other batch of students will graduate in either March or April. Usually, there are about 6,000 students ready to graduate.
“Who can be certain that we shall ever graduate?” a former law student wonders.
The only consolation that they have is that they may be able to graduate later.
But for most this is an unnecessary delay because they cannot get a transcript unless they graduate. For the lucky ones, Vice Chancellor, Professor John Ssebuwufu will preside over their graduation ceremony this Friday.

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