There is hope for Makerere University
Feb 27, 2010
PROF. Mahmood Mamdani has been appointed head of the Makerere University Institute of Research (MISR). Mamdani returns to Makerere 17 years after he left. He first joined Makerere in 1972 but left soon after when President Idi Amin expelled the Asians.
PROF. Mahmood Mamdani has been appointed head of the Makerere University Institute of Research (MISR). Mamdani returns to Makerere 17 years after he left. He first joined Makerere in 1972 but left soon after when President Idi Amin expelled the Asians.
He returned in 1980, but was again forced out by Milton Obote’s government for printing critical articles against the establishment. He has since been a scholar at Columbia University in New York.
While in the US, he maintained contact with Uganda. Three years ago, he published Scholars in the Market Place that, among other things, criticised the way university education has been commercialised.
Despite his advanced age, Mamdani will bring badly needed fresh air and world-class standards to Makerere hill as he also assumes a seat on the senate, the institution’s top academic decision-making body.
His biography shows that he is not averse to airing new ideas, even if they challenge the status quo.
And with his experience at Columbia University, we can expect that Makerere’s research function will quickly be elevated.
For far too long Makerere has been held hostage by outdated tradition, a bureaucracy out of step with modern times and laws that threaten to relegate it to the trash heap of history.
The liberalisation of university education has meant that thousands more students can attain a university degree. However issues of quality and lack of academic research have arisen.
Makerere needs to take back the initiative, work out the kinks in its services so as to improve the quality of its output and stem the erosion of its brand.
With the new vice-chancellor, Prof. Venasius Baryamureeba, and the introduction of “new bloodâ€, Makerere may begin to look forward to better times.
He returned in 1980, but was again forced out by Milton Obote’s government for printing critical articles against the establishment. He has since been a scholar at Columbia University in New York.
While in the US, he maintained contact with Uganda. Three years ago, he published Scholars in the Market Place that, among other things, criticised the way university education has been commercialised.
Despite his advanced age, Mamdani will bring badly needed fresh air and world-class standards to Makerere hill as he also assumes a seat on the senate, the institution’s top academic decision-making body.
His biography shows that he is not averse to airing new ideas, even if they challenge the status quo.
And with his experience at Columbia University, we can expect that Makerere’s research function will quickly be elevated.
For far too long Makerere has been held hostage by outdated tradition, a bureaucracy out of step with modern times and laws that threaten to relegate it to the trash heap of history.
The liberalisation of university education has meant that thousands more students can attain a university degree. However issues of quality and lack of academic research have arisen.
Makerere needs to take back the initiative, work out the kinks in its services so as to improve the quality of its output and stem the erosion of its brand.
With the new vice-chancellor, Prof. Venasius Baryamureeba, and the introduction of “new bloodâ€, Makerere may begin to look forward to better times.