350 teaching jobs available for PhD holders in Ugandan universities

Nov 28, 2014

About 350 teaching positions calling for doctorate holders are yet to be filled in Ugandan Universities and other degree awarding institutions.

By Innocent Anguyo

About 350 teaching positions calling for doctorate holders are yet to be filled in Ugandan Universities and other degree awarding institutions.

Uganda has 34 universities and two other degree awarding institutions-Uganda Management Institute and Team Institute of Business Management.

Nevertheless, Uganda’s number of PhD graduates is still very low despite the rapid growth of the higher education sector.

A recent government survey titled “the Careers and Productivity of Doctorate Holders (CDH)” established that PhD holders were only 11.7 percent of the total academic staff in these learning institutions, far below the 15 percent “acceptable” threshold.

 There are about 8,702 academics in these institutions, according to the most recent State of Higher Education report issued by the National Council of Higher Education (NCHE), the regulatory body.

 Eleven percent of 8,702 translates into 957 lecturers, less than the required 1,305 (15%). This leaves a huge gap of 350 slots to be filled by PhD holders.

Implication

Dr Vincent Ssembatya, the Makerere University Quality Assurance Director who was a consultant for the CDH survey said the low proportion of academic staff with doctoral degrees has an impact on the numbers of doctoral students who can be enrolled or supervised in Ugandan institutions.

The CDH report was conducted by the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology (UNCST).

Making reference to the CDH report, Ssembatya said “the low institutional capacity within university may explain why most PhD holders have supervised less than ten publications.”

This further explains why Uganda only produces 100 Doctorate holders every year.

No wonder, a recent international study conducted by South African research institution, Centre for Higher Education Transformation (CHET), established that, Makerere, Uganda’s top-ranked university was “poor at doctoral graduation rates and research output.”

“At Makerere, doctoral graduates increased from 11 I 2001 to 23 in 2007, which is a modest 13% increase, and from a very low base.

Doctoral enrolments also grew rather slowly from 28 to 32 over the same period. This was in sharp contrast to the doubling of masters enrolments, from 1167 to 2767,” said the CHET report.

“The rather low ratio of 2% of doctoral graduates to permanent academic staff meant that the university would have difficulty reproducing itself.”

This slow transition from Masters to doctorates is synonymous with all Ugandan universities and this weakens the country’s academic core.

Dr Alex Kagume, the Deputy Executive Director of the NCHE said it is hard for institutions with few PhD academic to conduct research.

For instance, the CHET report revealed that “Makerere’s 2007 ratio of publication units per permanent academic staff was still low, at 0.20, below the ratio of 0.50 which has been set as the target for universities in South Africa, the continent’s most developed education system.”

Generally, looking at the student-academic staff ratio, the State-of Higher-Education 2011 report produced by the NCHE notes that the “academic staff numbers have not kept pace with student enrolment growth.”

The report reveals that while students grew by 14.2% in 2010/11, staff grew by only 10.6%.

Is there a cause for alarm?


Kagume argued that, “this general statistics does not adequately define the real situation on the ground. Some universities have up to the 15% of the required PhD holders as academic staff, while others don’t,” explained Kagume.

He further noted that not all disciplines require tutoring by PhD holders. “Programmes like law, Engineering and Medicine much rely on skills and experience rather than the number of papers amassed,” Kagume said.

“Nevertheless, there is need for us to have more PhD holders as academics because they are the core of research.”

The deputy executive director further said some disciplines like Oil production are yet emerging in Uganda and it would equally be hard for the country to have big numbers of PhD holders to teach them just yet.

 “More Ugandan academics are also studying abroad. It would be good to train them cheaply at home but that can at times makes their training rather myopic. They need to have some exposure too,” added Kagume.

Significance of PhD holders

Ssembatya cited PhD holders as the key actors in the creation of innovation and new knowledge, making them the core of advancement in the society.

More specifically, the crucial role of highly qualified individuals represents a key to the production, application and transmission of knowledge.

Doctorate holders are considered to contribute to the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and technologies. They are key actors in the creation of innovation and knowledge-based economic growth.

The global economy is increasingly based on knowledge and information. Emerging countries like Uganda are transforming themselves from being  dependent on natural endowments towards investing in human capacity development and this is why PhD holders come handy.

Owing to the few numbers of Ugandan doctorate holders, CHET established that the country’s universities’ knowledge production output variables of the academic core were not strong enough to enable them to make sustainable contribution to development.

Solution


Asked how NCHE, as the regulator would address the problem, Kagume said the Council is currently drafting a strategy that would compel all universities in Uganda to train at least two PhDs holders every year.

“The same strategy will guide universities on quality of training at post graduate level. This will make us to produce the human resource that can support rapid transformation of the country,” explained Kagume.

 Ssembatya said Makerere which has about 700 PhD holders is currently working towards doubling its numbers of lecturers within the next few years, by encouraging staff to apply for scholarships, both abroad and in Uganda since doctorate training is expensive.

Kyambogo University Vice Chancellor Prof Eli Katunguka said the few numbers of PhD holders at the institution can be attributed to its infancy (Kyambogo started in 2001), saying he is now encouraging more staff to apply to write proposals for enrolling on doctorate.

More about Ugandan doctorate holders based on CDH report (OPTIONAL)

The CDH report established that most of PhDs earned outside Uganda were from the United Kingdom. Doctorates earned in natural sciences and agricultural sciences accounted for most PhDs, 47 percent.

Medical and health sciences had the least number of doctorates (6%) while financing for doctorate training had mainly come from fellowships or scholarships from abroad across the different fields of science and technology.

Over 85 percent of doctorate holders were employed on permanent basis and these were mainly in the higher education sector.

Doctorate holders in Uganda were largely geographically immobile with most (59%) having not stayed abroad for a specified period in the last ten years although 19 percent had intentions of emigrating to another country (mainly South Africa).

Using the number of publications as an indication of productivity, the survey established that most doctorate holders in Uganda had less than ten publications since they attained their qualification.

The dismal productivity was also reflected in the low numbers of patents that were granted (30 patents over a twenty year period).

 Survey findings indicated that an average doctorate holder in Uganda in 2010 was a man, aged between 45 and 54 years, and employed in the higher education sector. He was very dissatisfied with his salary yet employed on a permanent basis.

The weak linkage between higher education sector and the private business has continued to be a missed opportunity for harnessing product development and innovation.

Recommendations

The study pointed out that more funding for research and research infrastructure should be forthcoming to at least one percent of GDP to increase the levels of product development and innovation.

The survey upholds that for science and technology led growth to occur, Uganda’s active participation in the knowledge market will require greater investment in doctoral training besides the other levels of the human capacity pipeline.

The PhD should also not be viewed as a terminal qualification but should open up further opportunities for post-doctoral work.

The survey also proposes the creation of a centralised system that can allow employers to access information on the number of PhD students and an interface for doctoral holders to share experiences and opportunities.

This can bridge the current gap between the university system and the private sector.

Stronger links and synergies will need to be created between the training institutions and the private sector to ensure that doctorate holders and the research they generate are turned into marketable products.

Women should also be encouraged to pursue doctoral training cognizant of the peculiar challenges they face in undertaking study at this level. 
   
 

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