Africa-Press – Uganda. Makerere University is phasing out 19 undergraduate courses effective 2021/2022 academic year as one of the ways to transform it into a research-led institution.
Vice Chancellor Prof Barnabas Nawangwe, told Daily Monitor in an interview on Monday that the exercise aims to eliminate duplication, harmonise and reduce teaching load on staff to eneble them do research.
“We want to remain with only 62 undergraduate courses so that the staff can concentrate on the available courses and conduct more research because our aim is for Makerere to become a research-led university,” Prof Nawangwe said.
In an interview yesterday, the university director of quality assurance, Dr Vincent Ssembatya, said the courses that have been merged had 40 per cent similarity in their curriculum content.
It remained unclear how senate, the university’s top academic organ, approved these courses in the first place or why they were run for decades.
Dr Ssembatya said some courses such as Bachelor of Computer Engineering will be merged with Bachelor of Electrical Engineering, Bachelor of Business Statistics will be merged with Bachelor of Statistics, while Bachelor of Development Economics will be merged with Bachelor of Economics. “The principle we took in to identify the phased-out course was their similarity in the content,” he said.
He said Makerere will now concentrate on courses that are not offered by most universities and on graduate students to increase the number of PhD graduates.
Dr Ssembatya said the affected students will continue with the courses until they complete them. He also said the lecturers teaching the phased-out courses will not be affected.
However, the decision has not been welcomed by some affected students, saying the university has rendered their courses useless.
Ms Joan Nalunkuuma, a Third Year student of Community Psychology, said the university has not informed them about the new development and their fate.
“I am against the university scrapping off our psychology course because our services are much needed given the pandemic that has left many hopeless,” Ms Nalunkuuma said.
Ms Phiona Batamuriza, another student of one of the scrapped programmes, said the move by the university has rendered them ‘useless’ because they cannot continue studying a course that has been scrapped.
Phased out courses
2021/2022 courses
Bachelor of Science in HorticultureBachelor of Science in Human NutritionBachelor of Science in MeteorologyBachelor of Science in Wildlife Health and Mgt.Bachelor of Adult and Community EducationBachelor of Agricultural Extension EducationBachelor of Arts in Development EconomicsBachelor of Community PsychologyBachelor of Development StudiesBachelor of Industrial and Organizational PsychologyBachelor of Science in Business StatisticsBachelor of Science in Conservation BiologyBachelor of Science in Telecommunication EngineeringBachelor of Science in Quantitative EconomicsBachelor of Agricultural and Rural InnovationBachelor of Library and Information Sciences.Bachelor of Archives and Record ManagementBachelor of Science and Constructive ManagementBachelor of Computer Engineering.
Earlier phased out courses
Bachelor of Arts in DanceBachelor of Conservation Forestry & Product TechBachelor of Science in Dairy Industry and BusinessBachelor of Science in Information Technology.Bachelor of Science in Feed Industry and BusinessBachelor of Science in Leather Industry and BusinessBachelor of Science in Meat Industry and BusinessBachelor of Science in Poultry Industry and BusinessBachelor of Science in SurveyingBachelor of Social and Entrepreneur Forestry
