Nawangwe turning Makerere upside down

Makerere University Vice Chancellor, Prof Barnabas Nawangwe, on Friday announced radical changes to how Makerere University will operate going forward.
He said the University Council, the institution’s highest decision-making body, has decided to abolish the evening programme, meals in halls, lecturers’ allowances famously called “incentives” and declared that Makerere will begin the transition to an almost exclusively graduate university.
Some of the proposed changes are expected to raise public debate and, in respect of abolishing the staff “incentive”, the lecturers under their umbrella body Makerere University Academic Staff Association (Muasa), are already up in arms.
In an instant reaction to the announcements made by Prof Nawangwe, the Muasa chairperson, Dr Deus Kamunyu, said the lecturers expect that they will be paid their “incentives” in arrears stretching over many months, and that they have an agreement to have the money paid by July this year or else they go on strike.

The “incentive” were introduced during the 2013/2014 academic year after the teaching staff went on strike demanding 100 per cent salary increment.
The “incentive” constitutes a financial package given to members of staff as an overtime allowance for undertaking extra duties such as teaching evening and weekend classes. The arrangement was an amalgamation of close to 33 different allowances in the university at the time. Until it was halted in June 2016, citing lack of funds, the university was paying up to Shs4 billion every month in incentives to more than 2,600 members of staff. The incentive allowance is a 70 per cent top up of individual staff monthly pay.

By October 2016, when the lecturers went on strike, their accumulated incentive arrears had increased to Shs28 billion for eight months [February to September 2016].

More controversy
The matter of lecturers’ “incentives” aside, Prof Nawangwe and the Council may have an equally, if not bigger fight, in regards to their proposal to abolish the evening programme.

In reaching the decision, Prof Nawangwe said in his statement, the evening programme had become hard to maintain as the student numbers kept falling and the university had to fork out resources to sustain the programme. He said, however, that colleges within the university that may still sustain the evening programme will be free to do so.
Prof Nawangwe said the enrollment of undergraduate students will be gradually scaled down to transition Makerere into a graduate and research-led university, a point on which he said the Council concurred with the report of the Visitation
Committee that was chaired by the late Dr Abel Rwendeire.

Prof Venansious Baryamureeba, a former vice chancellor of Makerere University, who competed with Prof Nawangwe for the position, has weighed into Council’s decision to abolish the evening programme, calling it “stupid”.
“It wasn’t started just for money only, there were other issues being addressed by the evening programme. If you say you are scrapping the evening programme, you have to know why it was started. You can’t say we don’t have money and we are going to do that. Private universities do that but not public universities. The evening programme was started to help the working class, ministers, MPs, even a permanent secretary can come and study in the evening and as a public university, you need all kinds of stakeholders,” Prof Barymaureeba said.

“That is a very, I don’t want to use stupid, dangerous decision of a Council of a public university. If many private and public universities have come up (as the Council argued), why is Makerere is still admitting 15,000 students every intake? It means it is still the preferred institution. Public universities have to play to government political needs. How do you stop children of politicians across the country from joining? I think they are being stupid (laughs) and Parliament, government will tell them you can’t do it. If they told the colleges that train students to keep say 50 per cent of the money, the faculties will still run those programmes. So, what do they mean they don’t have the resources?”

Dr Odoi, who is the chairman of Makerere University Convocation and is a member of the university’s Senate, however, maintains that the evening programme was becoming a big problem in terms of how to pay the lecturers.
“Why would you have a class of only three people and you pay more money to maintain them than what they bring in? The evening programme was meant to be self-accounting, but it was becoming a problem as the numbers of students reduced. Some were going to other universities and even A-Level these days produces less students,” Dr Odoi said.

Possible consequences
It is not clear whether the change proposals were first discussed with the political leadership before the university’s Council had them announced. We were unable to speak to the minister of Education or any of her deputies on the matter.

But Prof John Asibo-Asubo, the executive director of the National Council for Higher Education, which supervises universities in some ways, told Sunday Monitor that they were officially unaware of the announced changes.
“Look at running afternoon classes, for example, won’t it create the same challenges as running the evening programme? We need to first hear from them what prompted them to go through with this. Doesn’t teaching the afternoon classes present the same problems as the evening classes?” Prof Asubo said.
He added: “What about the question of space availability and the staff to handle both programmes? I hope they have thought it through. They have a right to make changes but eventually, they will let us know. The very reason why evening programmes were started was financial and to provide access to as many people as possible to higher education. For now, they may have facts we don’t have.”

Prof Waswa Balunywa, the principal of Makerere University Business School (Mubs), indicated that Mubs would continue running the evening programme, saying all Makerere does for them is to accredit courses, admit students and graduate them.
Prof Nawangwe, who argued during his campaign to become vice chancellor that Makerere needs change and promised to effect radical changes, therefore, seems poised to encounter resistance from the staff, politicians and other circles.
But there are areas of his proposals that are likely to sail through unchallenged. Regarding the phasing out of meals in halls of residence and instead giving out cash to the government sponsored students, Prof Nawangwe has the blessing of his immediate predecessor.

On the issue of not providing meals in halls, Prof Ddumba Sentamu said: “The money we are getting is not enough and now we are getting money from private students to subsidise public students. It is a big challenge and I think Council has made a good decision (to abolish meals). There should be cost-sharing between the students and the government. If the government can cover full tuition, then the boarding and feeding should go to the students. It is a good idea.”

MEALS IN HALLS
To be paid. According to the Council resolution, each government-sponsored student will receive Shs476,000 per semester for feeding. This is supposed to cater for breakfast, lunch and dinner over the full period of the semester, which lasts 17 weeks. This roughly translates to Shs4,000 per day.

SUPPORT
In making the decision to abolish the lecturers’ “incentive”, Prof Nawangwe said the university’s Council took into consideration information that the institution’s internally-generated revenues were dropping, falling from Shs120b to Shs90b over the past 10 years. During that time, Prof Nawangwe added in his statement, “the cost of in-puts has gone up considerably”.
In abolishing the “incentive”, Prof Nawangwe has the support of Dr Tanga Odoi, the chairman of the ruling party’s electoral commission, who, for many years, headed Muasa and says the team he led negotiated the “incentive”.

HIS TAKE ON KEY POINTS
Staff Incentive.
In 2016, the University Management and Council communicated to members of staff that the payment of incentive was not financially sustainable. That due to the declining student numbers that led to a significant decline in the university revenue, the university was not in position to pay members of staff incentive effective July 1 2016. The alternatives to the incentive are being handled by the evening teaching and allowances committee, whose report will be presented to the University Council.

Evening programme.
During its meeting held on March 14, 2018, the University Council resolved that all new students (freshers), starting with the coming Academic Year 2018/2019, will be admitted to study various academic programmes at Makerere University on either the day programme from 8am to 5pm or on the afternoon programme from 2pm to 6pm. Colleges are, however, allowed to run evening programmes after filling the minimum enrolment on day and afternoon programmes.

Meals in halls.
0n March 1, 2018, the University Council unanimously agreed to stop providing meals in the Halls of Residence effective June 2018. With this Council resolution, each Government sponsored student will receive UGX.476,000/= per semester for feeding. The Students Affairs Committee is currently coming up with strategies aimed at ensuring that the university designates befitting commercial places for students on campus to buy food. The food outlets that previously existed on the Main Campus did not meet the minimum standards required by public food vending outlets.

Turning Makerere into graduate university. According to the proposed Makerere University Strategic Plan 2020-2030 and as recommended by the Visitation Committee Report, Makerere University should become a research-led university. This will necessitate reducing our undergraduate student numbers and increasing our graduate student admissions. We believe that there exists a critical number of universities in Uganda to handle the training of undergraduate students and only Makerere University has the capacity to produce the Masters and PhD graduates that will be needed to facilitate undergraduate training and the development of the country at large.
Extracted from the Vice Chancellor’s Friday media briefing

What they say about the new changes
Prof John Opuda-Asibo, NCHE executive director. We need to first hear from them [Makerere University] what prompted them to go through with this? Doesn’t teaching the afternoon classes present the same problems as the evening classes? I hope they have thought it through. They have a right to make changes but eventually, they will let us know. The very reason why evening programmes were started was financial and to provide access to as many people as possible to higher education. For now, they may have facts we don’t have.

Namirembe Bitamazire, Ex Education minister. I haven’t read the Rwendeire report but I have been following your reports in the media. I was a member of Makerere University Council for more than 15 years and later served as minister. Reforms are not bad, but the problem is implementation. The other question is how adequate they will be? All reforms should be put in the framework of the National Development Plan. The other issues are strategies to implement them, do we have the resources to meet the consequences?

Prof Wasswa Balunywa, Principal, Mubs. The administrations of these institutions are separate. Where we depend on Makerere is approving programmes, admitting students and graduating them. The rest is ours (at Makerere University Business School). However, it does impact on a number of things. Today, most of the people who study in the evenings work, so if they don’t have that opportunity, it means Makerere will lose out on most of those people who work and study in the evening.

Tanga Odoi, chairman Mak University Convocation. The lecturer incentive was never meant to be permanent. I negotiated it (as chairman Muasa) as a stop-gap measure because lecturers’ salaries were still low. It was subject to review and now that the lecturers’ salary situation has improved, the incentive can be removed. The Evening Programme was becoming a big problem in terms of how to pay the lecturers. Why would you have a class of only three people and you pay more money to maintain them than what they bring in?

Prof John Ddumba Ssentamu, former Mak Vice Chancellor. I will only comment on the issue of giving students money instead of the university providing the meals. The money we are getting is not enough and now we are getting money from private students to subsidise public students. It is a big challenge, and I think Council has made a good decision. There should be cost-sharing between the students and government. If the government can cover full tuition, then the boarding and feeding should go to the students.

Prof Venansious Baryamureeba, former Mak Vice Chancellor. If you say you are scrapping the evening programme, you have to know why it was started. You can’t say we don’t have money and we are going to do that. Private Universities do that but not public universities. The evening programme was started to help the working class, ministers, MPs, permanent secretaries... As a public university, you need all kinds of stakeholders. It wasn’t started just for money only, there were other issues being addressed by the evening programme.