MasterCard freezes Makerere scholarships

What you need to know:

  • Halt. The university says the suspension is to enable them review the programme before the scholarships can resume.

Kampala.

Makerere University has suspended the 2018/2019 MasterCard Foundation scholarship, a month after the university had invited undergraduate students to apply for the programme.
The university had in an advert in Daily Monitor dated March 15, announced a total of 252 scholarships for undergraduate programmes, with 214 slots for female applicants and 38 for males.
But Prof William Bazeyo, the university deputy Vice Chancellor in charge of finance and administration, in a public notice posted on Wednesday said the public and prospective students should ignore the call for application.
“Makerere University informs the general public that the recruitment of students for the 2018/2019 academic year has been suspended until further notice. Makerere University asks the general public to disregard the March 15, 2018, advertisement announcement in Daily Monitor. Makerere University regrets any inconveniences this advertisement may have caused,” the notice reads.

Sex scandals
The university has lately been entangled in cases of sexual harassment of female students by some lecturers and administrators.
The sex for marks scandal is reported to have forced the MasterCard Foundation to freeze funding after the university failed to act satisfactorily on the allegations.
Sources within the university say the foundation last week tasked the university to provide status of investigations into a case of sexual harassment at the university.
The case in point is of Dr Swizen Kyomuhendo, who was caught in sexual act with a female student in a city lodge, an allegation he has since denied. Our sources had also indicated some of the beneficiary students had petitioned the foundation, accusing some staff of demanding sex and deliberately refusing to mark their scripts unless they give in.
Daily Monitor could not independently verify the claims.
Our sources say, acting on the allegations, Ms Reeta Roy, the chief executive Officer of the MasterCard Foundation, called the Vice Chancellor, Prof Barnabas Nawangwe, to register their displeasure demanding an urgent brief on the status of implementation.
She had reportedly questioned whether Makerere was the right institution to mould their scholars into global citizens with unquestionable integrity.
Left with no option, the foundation reportedly suspended the scholarship programme.
The university consequently moved to withdraw the earlier advertisement calling for new applications.
But the university spokesperson, Ms Rita Namisango, said the suspension was intended to give Makerere time to review the programme and see what works best for both the university and the recipients.
Ms Namisango said the agreement they signed with MasterCard demanded that when the numbers hit 500, it would automatically trigger the review.
She said the advert calling for application came before the process kicked off.

Mid-term review
“The suspension is to enable them consolidate the programme in terms of what is offered to scholars. The project implementation team is now at the midterm review mark and it would be good to review the internal processes before they can proceed,” she added.
Ms Namisango said the current 500 beneficiary students on different academic programmes at Makerere will not be affected by the freeze.
“Consultations are going on between Makerere University management, the MCF project implementation team and MCF in general, and the date will be communicated on receipt of feedback regarding this matter,” she said.
Dr Florence Nakayiwa, the director of planning and the coordinator for the MasterCard Foundation scholarship at Makerere, said she was not aware whether the suspension of the advert was pegged on claims and unresolved cases of sexual harassment at the university.
Dr Nakayiwa said when the vice chancellor attended a meeting of top managers of MasterCard Foundation last week, he returned to inform the team at Makerere that everything was fine and that the programme would continue.
“We just suspended the advert for the 2018/20119 so that we carry out mid-term review before resuming the admissions,” she said.
Our repeated calls to Prof Nawangwe to verify the claims for suspension of the scholarships were unsuccessful by press time.
Following a string of allegations of sexual harassment at the institution, MasterCard Foundation reportedly wrote to the university management demanding status update on the investigation and progress made.
A source within the university said the programme funders were particularly disturbed that some of their beneficiaries were also victims of the sexual harassment.
The source said the some of the current beneficiaries had petitioned the foundation to intervene following demand for sex from some lecturers who had detained their scripts.
Faced with the accusations, the university strongly responded to the directive, but was not convincing enough and consequently the programme was suspended.

Denial
Ms Namisango admitted that the foundation had written to the university, but was quick to add that the current suspension of the programme was not tagged to the sexual harassment debacle.
“As partners, when there is an issue, we normally inform them. It is true they have expressed concern but it was not the reason they said the advert should be withdrawn,” she said.
Ms Namisango said the MasterCard requested for information on status update which the university complied with.
Attempts to get clarification from the foundation proved futile. By press time, Ms Isabelle Bourgeault-Tassé, the manager of media relations, had not responded to our inquiries by both e-mail and phone.