PhD graduates not developing Uganda - Mak report
Makerere University Chancellor Prof Ezra Suruma confers a PhD upon a male Graduand during the 69th Graduation Ceremony. A report by Makerere indicates that PhD graduates are not developing Uganda. Photo | Mak
What you need to know:
- Among the institutions that informed the research were both the private and public universities such as Makerere University, Mbarara University of Science Technology (MUST), Uganda Christian University, Kampala International University (KIU) and the Uganda Management Institute (UMI).
Researchers from Makerere University College of Education and External Studies have revealed in a report that Uganda’s Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) graduates do not provide significant contribution towards the development of Uganda’s economy.
Titled: Capability Enhancement Project for Innovative Doctoral Education at Ugandan Universities, the report was conducted in 14 post-graduate awarding institutions and interviewed a total of 49 participants.
The research sought to establish whether the training institutions undertake quality, research excellence and whether trainers tailor the post-graduate training towards exposing students to the job industry.
While presenting the research findings at Makerere University yesterday, Dr Tom Balojja, a member of the research team, said most of the PhD graduates heavily lack practical skills because the trainings are largely academic in nature. He also revealed that some of the training institutions visited lacked a curriculum.
“We found out that there are some PhDs, especially PhDs by research, which don’t have a written curriculum [and] it is dependent on individuals. So, sometimes this affects progress and even monitoring supervision,” Dr Balojja said.
“Some taught PhDs are too loaded that they surpass what the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) proposals as far as guidelines are concerned. In others, the capacity [of] the taught PhDs has less load compared to what NCHE has set. So you wonder how quality and research excellence can be controlled,” he added.
Among the institutions that informed the research were both the private and public universities such as Makerere University, Mbarara University of Science Technology (MUST), Uganda Christian University, Kampala International University (KIU) and the Uganda Management Institute (UMI).
The researchers also faulted the low quality of PhD graduates on understaffing, low financing and shortage of infrastructure to finance training since most students depend on scholarships.
According to the researchers, the low staffing is because the country has few PhD graduates. The research team indicated that Uganda has a total of 1,179 PHDs and of these, 1,025 are from public universities while 172 are from private universities.
Government responds
In her address at the dissemination of the research findings on behalf of the Executive Director of National Council of Higher Education, Ms Nora Mulira, acknowledged the need to have changes effected by government.
“We are in an environment that forces us to be creative as we train. We shall incorporate a number of the recommendations made here,” she added.
Recommendations
The principal investigator of the report, Ms Irene Etomaru, recommends that the government ensure that more practical training is embedded in the PhD training programmes.
“National Council for Higher Education should require all PHD supervisors to undergo training in supervision for innovative doctoral education,” Ms Etomaru said. Ms Etomaru also strongly recommends that the government avail more funding to support post graduate studies.
