Africa-Press – Uganda. Universities are working round the clock to submit their contentious programmes to the National Council of Higher Education (NCHE) for re-assessment ahead of the November deadline.
Prof Mary Okwakol, the NCHE executive director, recently said programmes that have received prior accreditation in accordance with NCHE’s minimum standards and regulations were valid, but tasked institutions named in running programmes due for review to submit them to the council for re-assessment before the November 30 deadline.
Prof Eli Katunguka, the vice chancellor of Kyambogo University, said all the 74 programmes that were due for review, were last month submitted to the council for re-assessment.
“This word (expired) was changed to ‘due for review’. Once programmes are accredited by the council for the first time, they will be due for review not expired,” Prof Katunguka, who doubles as the chairperson of NCHE, said on Wednesday.
Prof George Openjuru Ladaah, the Gulu University vice chancellor, said only one programme was recently submitted to the council for review.
Prof Patrick Kyamanywa, the vice chancellor of Uganda Martyrs’ University, Nkozi, said: “We submitted several programmes but, given the opportunity, we are also having a workshop next week to review all those due for review.”
Prof Celestino Obua, the vice chancellor of Mbarara University of Science and Technology, said about 98 percent of the programmes had been reviewed.
“Those that were erroneously listed as expired had already been submitted to the council. A few took long there (at NCHE) but we acknowledge the challenges that they face,” he said.
Prof Lawrence Muganga, the vice chancellor of Victoria University, said they don’t have any unaccredited programmes and urged the NCHE to expedite the accreditation and re-assessment process.
“They [NCHE] don’t have enough people to attend almost 250 institutions or react to more than 2,000 programmes submitted to them,” he said.
Prof Barnabas Nawangwe, the vice chancellor of Makerere University, said they were working tirelessly to ensure that they beat the set deadline.
When asked about the response from universities, Prof Okwakol said: “After November 30, the deadline we set for submission, we will give you all the information you may require about the process.”
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