Makerere University Business School (MUBS) principal Professor Juma Wasswa Balunywa has come out to thorn through Makerere University which he labelled being slow and bureaucratic.
According to Prof Balunywa, the University is old-fashioned and has thus failed to make any visible impact in the community despite the enormous support and resources at it’s exposure.
The Prof made these remarks last week during a stakeholders mobilization event.
This was one of the many upcoming activities aimed at celebrating the University’s centennial achievements as a centre of excellence in higher education learning in the region.
“They are used to old methods, Makerere. Makerere is very bureaucratic, it is very slow at decision making. If there was somebody who was faster at decision making, who sees opportunities, like now if there is somebody who came up who had similar stuff and came up with e-learning programs they would go beyond Makerere very quickly. It has the staff, it has the structure, it has the government support but they don’t use them enough. Makerere would be much bigger,” Prof Balunywa said.
However Balunywa’s remarks were met with a little bit of distaste from the University’s officials and some of the other participants.
The Prof was discussing a theme known as ‘leveraging 100 years of excellence in building a transformed society.’
KCCA’s executive director Dorothy Kisaka who was one of the panelists however agreed with the Prof.
She said that Makerere University is still standing on the pillars of graduating students onto the job market which is limited instead of problem solving.
Yusuf Kiranda the University’s secretary however said that the University has done a lot of impactful work in different communities and fields.
The bad press and misinformation in the media have however made sure that these deeds don’t come out into the public.
Makerere University’s vice Chancellor Prof Barnabas Nawangwe acknowledged some of the points raised by Balunywa.
He however said that the University is already planning on how best to address these challenges.
“And what are we going to do to be a research-led university? We must modernize the research infrastructure, we must modernize laboratories, come up with a central laboratory because we don’t need to build laboratories in every college now. We can have a central laboratory, research centres, teaching and research hospital, we need a teaching and research hospital very badly. A science and technology pub which will actually help the young people to incubate their ideas into businesses, begin companies and create jobs for this multitude of the youth coming out and of course further human resource development. What is our promise? Our promise is that we’re set for the next century of service to humanity and what are we praying for? Our prayer to you all is we invite you to be our partner as we continue building for the future,” Prof Nawangwe explained.
The Chief guest Hon Thomas Tayebwa who had represented the speaker of Parliament applauded the Institution for it’s achievements.
He however said that a lot needs to be done because the government funds the Institution well enough.
“Lecturers, despite paying them well, are still concerned about the issue of moonlighting. You don’t give value and much attention to the university. We request you to look at that, we request you to ensure you have the maximum teaching load because we hear there are those who have half of the teaching load they are supposed to be having, and yet those people are saying we recruit part-time lecturers. It cant be,” the government chief whip said.
He added that the University should also start devising means of being self sustainable.
The University is set to have year long celebrations of it’s 100 years in existence since it was formed in 1922 as a technical Institute by the British colonialists.
