NCHE rejects 66 KIU PhD degrees

By Jeff Andrew Lule

KAMPALA - The National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) has rejected the 66 PhD degrees which were awarded by Kampala International University (KIU) in 2011 and 2012.

This follows the findings by the task force which was set up by NCHE to establish whether or not KIU met the required minimum standards to award the degrees.

The task force did its work between January 7, and March 25, 2013.

Addressing the media at the education council’s offices at Kyambogo on Tuesday, the chairperson of the council, Prof. Pen Mogi Nyeko said findings show that all the awards do not meet the standards as by NCHE requirements.

According to findings, out of the 66 candidates who were awarded in the two years, the dissertations of eight candidates require minor corrections, while 36 require major revisions before PhD awards can be recognized.

Other 22 dissertations were rejected generally for having serious conceptual, philosophical, theoretical, methodological and new knowledge deficiencies with obvious instances of plagiarism that rendered them irredeemable.

Nyeko said the eight candidates need two to three months to correct their errors, while 36 need six months to one year to improve their work before they can get the awards.

 “The 22 must start afresh on their programmes in a year or two,” he noted.

The findings also reveal that there were flaws in the admission processes and low quality examination processes.

Fault was also found in recruitment of some non-qualifies supervisors and examiners, and non-adherence to the four-year approved duration for the completion of the approved PhD programme contrary to the university’s policy.

The task force observed cases of supervision overload, citing an incident where two supervisors had 14 and 12 PhD students.

And this, they discovered, was done in addition to other regular assignments including the supervision of Masters students, teaching and administrative roles.

The chairman of the task force, also Vice Chancellor Kyambogo University, Opuda Asubo said they found seven supervisors without PhDs while others had fake ones from non-recognized universities.

He said many supervisors had questionable experience and lacked expertise in the areas of supervision.

The acting and deputy NCHE executive director, Moses Golola said they are working with KIU to set up a team of independent assessors to make sure the task force recommendations are duly adhered to before the PhD awards are recognized.

“What want to make sure all our graduates are competent and can generate knowledge internationally.

“We are ready to support KIU to raise their standards.  We do not want our people to be blacklisted at anyone point,” Golola said.