Understaffing in universities affecting research - NCHE

Kampala. The former National Council for Higher Education executive director, Prof A.B Kasozi, has asked the current leadership to stop licensing universities which are not conducting research.
“If a university is only teaching and not doing research, you should stop licensing them,” Prof Kasozi appealed at the council’s annual conference in Kampala yesterday .
According to Mr Pius Achang, the NCHE head Institutional and programme accreditation, for one to qualify to teach in a university, they must have a PhD.
However, Prof Kasozi said institutions only have 11 per cent of the staff with PhDs.
For example, Prof Kasozi, said while Makerere University has capacity to produce 150 PhDs annually, they have been able to qualify 68, Mbarara University of Science and Technology is able to graduate eight, but only has three passed out annually, while Kampala International University with a capacity of 13 is able to graduate 14 PhD graduates.

Institutions warned
He warned that institutions should guard against graduating people who do not meet the minimum standards.
Dr Vincent Ssembatya, the Director Quality Assurance at Makerere University, yesterday said their capacity has improved to 75 PhD students graduating annually.
In a separate interview, Dr Nora Mulira, NCHE Director Research, said there were only 42 publications in 2017 with Makerere University contributing 29 of them.
She attributed the high volume of research at Makerere to their ability to attract donors who finance majority of their research work.
“The research from institutions is not adequate because universities depend primarily on tuition collected from students,” she said.
Mr Robert Ocheng, the Director Higher Education at the Ministry of Education, admitted that universities are understaffed.
It is believed PhD graduates should be able to generate new knowledge that is beneficial in solving problems around their communities.