Why varsity education needs reform
It is not disputed that the education sector is one of the most critical sectors in the development of a nation. It is also important that nations develop through innovation, creativity and by the nature of the education system, which influences the contributions of the populace in nation building. Education has to be accessible to all citizens of a country. And it is the role of government to ensure that its citizens can easily access the service.
Uganda is blessed to have one of the most prestigious universities such as Makerere. It is, however, sad that Makerere University has turned out to be a hub for strikes stemming from issues related to tuition increment. Other universities in the country have also had their fair share of strikes due to, among others, what they deem as unfair policies and high costs of university education.
Considering the fact that the cost of education has seemingly gone up, I appeal to the government to look into the issues pertaining to the cost of university education and management. A nation whose people cannot access education due to its high costs risks suffering from development stagnation. This is because for any development to take place, the country must have a well educated and informed human resource to turn things around.
But the question is, who should be responsible for ensuring that one can get reasonably affordable education? Is it the State or the parents? And if it is the parent, how about where they fail to raise the required money to educate their child? How about where the cost of education skyrockets, who is responsible for regulating the cost of higher education? Besides, what happens where the quality of education is seemingly low and the entire sector requires reforms?
Today, we have many graduates, who cannot do anything beyond what they studied? To make matters worse, some graduates can’t even apply whatever they learnt from university in the day-to- day world. Unfortunately, this has not stopped the hiking of tuition among public and private universities.
Former South African president Nelson Mandela once said: “Education is the key to developing a nation. A nation that ignores to improve the quality and accessibility of its education is as good as gone. At such a time, when university education is becoming extremely expensive with some universities increasing their tuition day in day out, I believe it is imperative that government comes in to regulate and subsidise education, especially for those who cannot genuinely afford a decent university education. I believe that this should be the time; different stakeholders get to sit with government in order to derive means of uplifting the standards of higher education as well as see to it that the tuition structure in universities is subsidised.”
Albert Einstein once remarked, “The significant problems we face in life can’t be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them, we need to free our minds and soar to heights of thought previously thought unsustainable to get ourselves out of the predicament we are in today.
We should analyse the workings of the developed world and contrast them with our ideal situation and a harmonisation of the two will serve as a great deal in human resource building and capacity...”
