Major public universities need government intervention for new investment policies

Jan 26, 2015

At the beginning of every academic year, major university students carry hopes of some laxity and days without class due to “sure appearance” of an uprising, demonstration or strike that usually ends in either total or partial closure of the institutions.

By Solomon Kalema Musisi

At the beginning of every academic year, major university students carry hopes of some laxity and days without class due to “sure appearance” of an uprising, demonstration or strike that usually ends in either total or partial closure of the institutions.


With Makerere University having had the 65th Graduation and Kyambogo the 10th, it is time to question which kind of graduates these strikes are grooming for the world and the threat that grooming pauses to national and world security.

Should we continue to believe that every year “if the students do not go on strike affect the university staff will?” and ignore the effect this trend has on the rankings of top Ugandan universities in continental and world rankings as well as welfare evaluation reports?

Whether or not there is a group of individuals who benefit from the strikes from the financial or political angle is a question we have to leave to those parties to discuss.
What is of paramount importance is the need to raise income from other dependable sources and if agriculture is truly the backbone of the Ugandan economy and these public universities are within the boundaries of Uganda, it is time to leave up to the underlying expectations.

It is time the central Government looked into how much bare land these public universities possess and invested more financial input into turning the “forgotten lands” into agribusiness powerhouses to not only return sanity but to reinstate student-friendly policies related to charges that would then be reduced by supplementary income from such investments.

Market for products from agribusiness firms run by the universities would also be largely within their reach by virtue of the fact that the alumni of the major public Universities such as Kyambogo and Makerere University are present at all levels including local, regional and international trade organizations as well as the top decision making organs in the country and the world in general.

The same synergy of alumni could also present a much easier loan or lease basis alternative to direct government funding since it is usually “lack of funds at the moment” that seems to be the case with such proposals.

Universities have highly educated manpower in form of students of agricultural programs and interns in similar disciplines as well as engineering, architecture, information technology and marketing.

Some traditional examples of institutions whose reputation has been defended for many years by financial management and investment options exploited in agribusiness farms are Mugwanya Preparatory School Kabojja, St. Savio Junior School at Kisubi and other schools under the Brothers of Christian Instruction.

While in Makerere University, privately sponsored students who pay millions of shillings in tuition fees are no longer fed by the university, these primary schools have constant provision of milk, maize flour and banana’s among others with their own maize milling units.
They sell off surplus and only purchase bread which they do not produce and this tradition has always left infrastructural development with achievable budgets with former students always willing to supplement the already boosted budgets.

Matching the investment capital on budgets of the primary schools’ budgets to that of the Universities, it is evident that the latter are dealing with much bigger billions of shillings as well as grants from a wider range of national and international partner institutions and funding bodies.

If the example of the primary schools seems far fetched, attention can be shifted to the Ugandan People’s Defense Forces and the Government of Uganda itself where agricultural investment is a source of revenue that is not overlooked.

The writer is founder of the Pan African agricultural students’ society
 

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