Makerere scraps evening classes at Law school

Makerere University has scrapped the Law evening programme, leaving 35 students stranded.
The students had applied for the academic programme in May for the August intake at the Law school.

About 200 had earlier been told to reschedule to the day programme, however, 165 were successful.
Thirty-five of the students insist that the day programme disrupts their work schedule.
The students either undertake the day programme or wait for the new executive programme, which will start in January next year.
Under the executive programme, students will learn as and when they have the time.

Some students, who had applied for the evening programme told Daily Monitor that they paid Shs240,000 for pre-entry exams and application fees and were worried they would lose the money if they do not choose from the alternative.
Makerere University Vice Chancellor Prof Barnabas Nawangwe last year announced that the university was in advanced stages of abolishing evening courses.

He said colleges would be allowed to run evening programmes if they had the required space, staff and resources.
Last evening, the university management said they scrapped the evening programme due to financial constraints and added that lecturers cannot afford to teach throughout the day and evening.

“I don’t want to call it scrapping per se but the students have been informed to choose from the available choices. We shall have a new programme we have called ‘Executive’ which will be run in a module form starting January next year. The students will graduate at the same time with those starting,” said Dr Muhammad Kiggundu Musoke, the university’s head of communication and international relations.

The affected students were informed of the new changes on Monday during a meeting called by the university management. After the meeting, some students accepted the change while others said they would not risk losing their jobs to take up the an alternative academic programme.
Some of the affected students, who claimed anonymity, said they were informed of the new changes late and they were left with limited options to either wait until next year or do the same course at another university.
“They advertised this programme and we have reasons why we applied for it. We have nothing to do now that the semester is opening next week,” the students said.
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