Authorities blame Makerere's performance decline on understaffing
Poll. Makerere University lecturers vote to suspend the strike at the university main building in July 2017 . FILE PHOTO
What you need to know:
- The University requires to recruit 258 technicians with a total annual wage implication of Shs8.8 billion.
- Legislators on the education committee reasoned that government should take up immediate actions to ensure that all public universities are given the necessary support to ensure quality higher education in the country.
Makerere University is currently grappling with acute understaffing with at least 1, 700 critical offices remaining vacant, the university's authority have revealed.
While appearing before the Parliament’s education committee on Thursday, Prof Umar Kakumba, deputy vice chancellor in charge of Academics at the country’s oldest and biggest public university revealed that the institution’s academic performance has for years continued to decline, partly due to understaffing that has continued to escalate over the years.
Prof Kakumba noted although the approved number of professors is 419, only 78 are currently employed at the institution while only 155 associate professors are being employed out of the approved 433.
“For senior lecturers, the establishment is 596 but only 274 are filled leaving a gap of 322. We need 871 lecturers but only 515 are filled while 356 slots remain vacant. 423 slots of the approved 819 assistant lecturer slots also remain vacant,” Prof Kakumba said.
“We need more professors and this has also affected our performance and ranking lately because other universities have continued to get more professors, associate professors and all the other necessary human resources at various levels,” he added.
According to the statistics presented by Prof Kakumba, Makerere’s understaffing in the academic department stands at 55 percent with a staffing gap of 1, 720 employees.
Meanwhile, the university has a total staff establishment of 7, 136 (both academic and non-academic staff). However, only 40 percent (2, 853 positions) are filled, leaving 60 percent (4,283 positions) vacant.
Equally, Prof Kakumba reiterated the urgent need to recruit technicians in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines. He noted that shortage of technicians led to the suspension of the accreditation to Makerere’s veterinary medicine graduates.
“The Medical Council also threatened to suspend the accreditation of graduates of Makerere medical school. Technicians are a mandatory requirement for laboratory-based training and related practicals in the Stem disciplines,” Prof Kakumba said.
The University requires to recruit 258 technicians with a total annual wage implication of Shs8.8 billion.
“However, recruitment can be phased if the required funds are not fully available. We also need a wage requirement of Shs4.34b for 184 academic staff who qualify for promotion,” he added.
Legislators on the education committee reasoned that government should take up immediate actions to ensure that all public universities are given the necessary support to ensure quality higher education in the country.
“Issues affecting public universities are almost the same year after year, with such challenges we are likely to produce half-baked graduates and not so later, our education sector doubted,” Mr Nathan Itugon, MP Kashari South said.
This Publication has learnt that the ministry of finance has scheduled a meeting with the top management of all public universities today [Friday] and among others, the two are expected to discuss how to increase the meager budget allocation to the higher education institutions.
