Kyambogo staff threaten demo over extra teaching load

Lecturers at Kyambogo University have threatened to stop teaching all the evening and weekend programmes if the management does not pay them extra money for teaching beyond their stipulated 12 hours in a week.

This is likely to leave about 10,000 students, especially privately sponsored ones on evening and weekend programmes, stranded.

The lecturers stress that starting next week, they are going to teach students for only 12 hours in a week under the normal teaching load, beyond which they expect extra pay.

However, this is contrary to the 15 hours the University Council approved as the normal teaching load for a lecturer per week for the 2021/22 academic year.

“Teaching load shall be 12 hours. Any load above 12 hours shall be extra load and should be paid for,” the lecturer’s resolutions seen by Daily Monitor read in part.

They add: “Letters appointing staff to teach extra load should be received by Friday this week or else, all staff shall withdraw labour from all evening and weekend programme.”

Previous practice
In an interview, the Kyambogo University Academic Staff Association general secretary, Mr Emmanuel Wandera, said initially, the staff were teaching for only 10 hours and were paid for all the extra hours beyond that.

He said the University Council sat and extended the teaching hours to 12 minimum and 15 hours maximum without involving the lecturers, something he said was unfair.

“Teaching for 15 hours is too much because as staff, we do a lot of things other than teaching. We have to prepare exams, set tests, mark and at the same time supervise research for master’s and PhD students,” Mr Wandera said.

According to the staff association general secretary, the university was initially giving Shs25,000 per hour for day programmes and Shs45,000 per hour for evening and weekend lectures. This money was computed and added to the salary of the lecturers at the end of the month.

A June 17, 2021, document from the office of the vice chancellor Daily Monitor has seen shows that the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Public Service approved the university structure whose implementation was slated to kick off during the 2020/21 academic year.

When contacted yesterday, the acting vice chancellor, Prof Maria Gorreti Musoke, said that management is slated to meet the University Council to forge a way forward.

“Before the staff resolutions, we met with the executive of teaching staff and communicated to them that the University Council has revised the teaching load to 15 hours. As management, we just implement the decisions of the Council. We do not make them,” Prof Musoke said.

She, however, said the university has reduced the working hours for lecturers with extra administration roles such as heads of department, deans and examination coordinators.

Teaching load
According to the approved teaching load, faculty deans are slated to teach for six hours, heads of department 9 hours, those who teach PhD students 6 hours while examination coordinators are to teach for 12 hours.

Lecturers without extra administrative roles are supposed to teach for 15 hours.