Universities and other tertiary institutions have been caught off guard regarding expired programs, according to Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe, the vice chancellor of Makerere University. The recent controversy arose when the University of Bristol in England rejected an application for a graduate program on the grounds that her undergraduate Biomedical Laboratory Technology degree program at Makerere University had expired.
This incident has caused concern and anxiety among students, alumni, and administrators in both public and private educational institutions nationwide. Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe says there is a need to have a moment of truth by universities, including the one he leads, regarding adhering to the guidelines and regulations set by the National Council for Higher Education regarding program reviews and reassessment.
The academician acknowledges that all vice-chancellors are fully aware of the requirement to review programs periodically to ensure their relevance and alignment with the needs of the workforce.
He, however, admits that universities often overlook the task of reviewing their programs once the accreditation period has expired.
Based on the information at hand, the National Council for Higher Education grants accreditation to a program and allows for additional years for review and re-assessment before undergoing further evaluation.
Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe
Dear Colleagues, Members of Staff of Makerere University,
Thank you for the good job you are doing for Makerere University and
Uganda.
Currently, Makerere University is in the press, along with other Ugandan
universities, for the wrong reasons.
A number of our academic programmes are not accredited by the National Council of Higher Education (NCHE) and this has led to the denial of admission to one or two of our
graduates to higher degrees by some European universities and this has understandably raised concern among members of the public.
This problem has been due to laxity partly on our side and also on the side of the
NCHE. On our side, there have been unacceptable delays in the review of some programmes by departments, schools, and colleges, and occasionally at the Senate level for re-accreditation as required by law.
On the side of the NCHE, there have been delays in processing programmes for
accreditation and also delays in updating their website.
Our programmes that have appeared on the NCHE website as expired
include:
i) Programmes that have either been discontinued or merged with other
programmes;
ii) Programmes that have already been submitted to the NCHE for
accreditation; and
iii) Programmes that are at different levels of review at Makerere
University.
We are working with the NCHE to correct errors on their website and we
hope this will be done soon. However, we must clean up our own house.
Colleagues with programmes whose accreditation has expired have been
alerted by the Academic Registrar and given a deadline to submit the
reviewed programmes. The colleagues concerned should adhere to the
deadline that has been given.
We have not had a system to track the expiry of the accreditation of our
many academic programmes, leading to some programmes being overdue for
accreditation for up to six years. This is simply unacceptable. However,
the Academic Registrar has now developed a database on the status of the
accreditation of our programmes.
All the responsible colleagues should monitor the accreditation of programmes under their jurisdiction in order to avoid a repeat of this embarrassing situation.
Despite the bad press that this situation has caused, I wish to assure you that Makerere
University programmes are highly rated internationally and we will
overcome the current challenges as We Build For The Future.
Let me take this opportunity to wish all of you a successful semester 2
examination session.
Yours sincerely,
Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe
