Makerere students petition parliament over scrapped courses

Makerere University students of Ethics and Human Rights protest the institution’s decision to merge or scrap more than 32 programmes at the university yesterday. PHOTO BY ALEX ESAGALA 

Students of Makerere University have petitioned parliament over the institution’s decision to scrap 32 courses.
Students of Ethics and Human Rights, one of the courses the university intends to scrap on Tuesday petitioned Parliament to stay execution of the institution’s decision.
The students say Makerere did not give them an opportunity to make a case for retaining the course, which the latter intends to scrap starting next month.
Through a petition tabled in Parliament by Budadiri West Member of Parliament Mr Nandala Mafabi, the students added that it would affect their bargaining power in the job market when they complete school.

“The continuing students are worried; they believe if the course is scrapped it would imply the course is irrelevant. And the moment a course is perceived to be irrelevant, it becomes harder to get a job,” said Mr Mafabi.
Mr Mafabi said if the university is bent on scrapping the course, it should pick elements of the course and make them course units of the other courses of study that won’t be scrapped.
The Government Chief Whip Ms Ruth Nankabirwa said the students and the lecturers should dialogue to mitigate conflict – strikes.

“The issue here is whether ethics and human rights can stand alone as a bachelor’s degree course or whether we can have components of ethics and human rights cutting across other degree courses,” Ms Nankabirwa said.
“Still, to scrap the course might not help us. I support that the ministry of Education should come to this House and inform it which subjects will be stand alone and which ones will cut across.”
As early as 2009, the issue of scrapping some courses has been on the table with an ad hoc committee floating the proposal.
The committee argued that some of the courses were duplicitous.

On April 18 this year, the students protested the institution’s decision to scrap the courses.
According to Prof John Ddumba Ssentamu, the vice chancellor, some of the courses have been merged, dropped or restructured to give a holistic training to graduates.
“About 32 courses were scrapped and others merged. The decision was reached on Thursday. Students protesting need to understand that curriculum reviews are done after every five years,” Prof Ddumba said then, assuring affected students that the continuing ones and those joining the university this year will not be affected.
Prof Ddumba explained the decision follows a report by a committee set up the Makerere University Council years ago.

Recommendations
The report recommends that 30 degree programmes be merged, 18 be restructured while 21 undergraduate diplomas, 11 undergraduate certificates and three degree programmes be phased out.
Chaired by Prof Richard Odoi Adome, the committee reviewed all undergraduate and postgraduate academic programmes, identified duplications, possible mergers and economic viability and relevance.
They are also expected to look at the unit cost for each programme, staff teaching loads and submit findings in three months.
The findings will then be presented to President Museveni who had directed the institution’s management to review its academic programmes and establish a unit cost for training a student on their various courses.