Minister of Education and Sports, Janet Kataha Museveni has tasked Makerere University officials to investigate why few women graduated this year at the postgraduate level.
While the university had more women graduating on the overall, fewer women are graduating at higher levels of education like Post Graduate Diplomas, Masters Degrees and Doctor of Philosophy-PhD.
Data from the university shows that only 36 women graduated at the Postgraduate Diploma level this year, out of the 119 graduands. At Masters level, the university registered 471 out of 1,173 graduands and only 17 out of the 61 PhDs.
The same trend was seen during the 69th graduation ceremony in 2019, where only 238 women graduated at master’s degree level and only 11 out of 56 obtained PhD’s. Mrs Museveni says that research needs to be carried out to find out why few women pursue higher levels of education compared to men.
Last year, Makerere University Council approved an affirmative action policy towards admission of female students for Science related courses. The policy, which will start during the next admission process later this year, will give females pursuing science-related courses a 40 percent quota.
The first lady also urged the students to resort to peaceful methods of conflict resolution instead of resorting to violence during strikes. She says that the continued use of strikes at the university disgracing the university which is considered among the top 10 learning institutions in the country.
University vice-chancellor Barnabas Nawangwe said he would continue suspending students to quell all hooliganism at the university. He said that they would not rest until all bad fruits were dealt with at the university.
A total of 13,509 students are scheduled to graduate between today and Friday 17, 2020.
