Salary reforms at Makerere long overdue

The wage bill in Makerere University or in any other public university in Uganda is in the region of 50 per cent and plus of the institution’s annual budget. This wage bill includes salary and wage payments as well as allowances and related pecuniary entitlements to both academic and non-academic staff.
As is explained in this article, the bill for each university is much higher than it would be if some colonial regulations were revisited by the institutions. For instance, a reform of the salary or remuneration scale from a single scale covering all employees to a differentiated, double scale—one for the academic staff and another for the non-academic staff—would reduce the wage bill in the way explained below.

Two categories of staff
Each university employs two categories of staff: academic and non-academic staff. On the one hand, the academic staff include teaching assistants (a training, non-permanent grade), assistant lecturers, lecturers, senior lecturers, associate professors and professors.
On the other hand, non-academic staff (administrators and other support staff) include all those not employed as academic staff, ranging from sweepers, technicians, laboratory assistants to the vice chancellor.

Normally, a person is appointed as a member of the academic staff or as a non-academic staff, not both concurrently. Consequently, a non-academic staff member who wishes to officially participate in academic matters, like lecturing and research on a full-time basis, must resign from his/her administrative position and join the academic channel on a full time basis, and vice versa.
If the member wishes to retain his/her post as an administrator, he/she has no option but to participate in academic activities on a part-time, unofficial basis; he/she is thereby treated as other part-timers from outside the university.

There is, however, a small variation to this arrangement at the University of Dar es Salaam. There, an academic staff member can be ‘seconded’ to a non-academic post at the university or in government for up to two years initially or for a maximum of four years altogether. This means that the academic staff member is officially allowed to join administration in the university or government for up to four years, without resigning his/her academic position.
Recruitment and promotion requirements and processes also differ significantly between the two categories of university staff. For recruitment in the academic category, the minimum requirement is normally an upper second class or first class bachelor’s degree in the relevant field of specialisation. This is in regard to the position of teaching assistant.

For recruitment to higher posts in academics, one needs a good combination of the following variables: higher academic qualifications, a record of effective teaching, sound research (in terms of specified numbers of publications in recognised academic outlets), a good record of supervision of graduate students (for the posts of senior lecturer to full professor), and good community outreach (that is, good contribution to the relevant community).
This is in addition to serving for at least three years in one’s current post. Promotion is also based on the six factors: longevity in a position as well as higher qualifications and teaching, research, graduate student supervision and outreach records. A lot of emphasis is put on research; as one moves from lecturer to full professor, the number of required recognised publications increases.

In addition, these days, without a PhD degree obtained from a recognised institution of higher learning, one cannot be normally recruited or promoted to the post of senior lecturer, associate professor, or (full) professor. As is evident, it is a water-tight and rigorous process of recruitment or promotion in the academic world.
In the non-academic staff sphere, recruitment and promotion processes appear not to be as rigorous as they are in the academics. For example, a person without an upper second or first class bachelor’s degree or equivalent may be recruited to, technically, any post in the non-academic cadres.

Consequently, today, there are still various persons with pass (class) first degrees in both junior and senior administrative posts in virtually all public universities. Further, it appears that, other than some minimum qualifications, only two variables—longevity and ‘good’ performance—are taken into account in promotion processes in the non-academic world in a university.
Without a sound staff evaluation process from the department to the university council levels, whether or not a staff member’s performance is good or otherwise is determined solely by that person’s supervisors and peers. Bias may, therefore, not be ruled out in the process of evaluating a non-academic staff member for promotion. Besides, factors like research, supervision and outreach records play a very minor, if any, role in the recruitment and promotion processes of non-academic staff.

Thus, the two categories of staff are treated as very different from each other. The academic staff members are employed to disseminate knowledge to students in various fields of specialisation, to produce new knowledge through research, to supervise student academic activities, including postgraduate theses, and to spread knowledge to the surrounding community through outreach.
As for the non-academic staff, they are employed to provide administration and supporting services to students and university staff in general and to initiate and implement policies aimed at enhancing a conducive atmosphere for the dissemination and generation of knowledge as well as developing the concerned institutions of higher learning.
Unfortunately, the line of demarcation between academic and non-academic staff with regard to employment is, by accident of history, too sharp. As noted before, there is, for example, no joint, double, or cross-appointments of staff.

This lack of a convenient system of double, joint, or cross-appointments dates back from colonial days. It is a big block to non-academic staff members who wish to join academics, after further training, yet some of them might have joined administration while in possession of good (upper second or first class) bachelor’s degrees, or equivalents.
In view of this tangential distinction between the two staff categories, one would expect that each category has a distinct salary or remuneration scale or package. Since, normally, remuneration of an employee should be based, among other things, on work done or assigned, academic qualifications, experience and related considerations.

As noted earlier, there is a single remuneration package embracing the two categories of staff members in Makerere and other public universities. In fact, many private universities are also following the same distorted system.
This all-embracing scale (one of the relics of colonial history) is based on a distorted and dubious equating of non-academic jobs to academic jobs particularly for purposes of remuneration. For example, as regards remuneration, each of the positions of Academic Registrar, University Secretary, Bursar and Dean of Students—to mention a few—is equated to the academic position of full professor. Hence, these administrators have the same remuneration packages as professors.

Similarly, their deputies get the same remuneration package as associate professors, while the cadre below these deputies (such as senior assistant registrars or university secretaries) is entitled to the same remuneration package as a senior lecturer; and so on.
This strange equating of remuneration packages happens despite the fact that the two staff categories are recruited and promoted on sharply differing conditions. The two categories also perform very distinct tasks from each other.
It goes without saying that because of this rather mysterious equating of remuneration packages, some university administrators and other supporting staff end up earning far more than they would have done without the equating.

Footing higher remuneration bill
Consequently, a public university ends up footing a higher remuneration bill than warranted. This writer did raise these issues when he was at Makerere University and the University of Dar es Salaam. Note that it is the top administrators to initiate such a policy change. Unfortunately, hardly anybody paid attention to my viewpoints—since the implicit salary scale reform would be detested by the non-academic staff who are the employees “reaping from what they did not sow”.
However, it should be pointed out that, nowadays, at the University of Dar es Salaam, there is a slight difference in the packages of the two categories; the academic staff are paid a ‘teaching top-up’ allowance, which the non-academic staff are not entitled to.

In conclusion, it is then obvious that one sure way to reduce the wage bill at Makerere and other public universities (in addition to enhancing the use of more efficient technologies, so that ‘machines gradually replace men’) is to evolve two separate remuneration packages—not based on the illogical, colonial equating of academic and non-academic positions. This may also go a long way in curtailing unnecessary industrial actions by non-academic staff that occur whenever only the academic staff members’ salaries or other entitlements are enhanced.

The writer is former academic registrar, Makerere University