Makerere University has extended its reporting dates for the academic year 2016/2017 to a week later following the non-teaching staff strike, Campus Bee authoritatively reports.
The semester which had to begin tomorrow, 6th August for freshers and 13th August for continuing students will now begin on 13th Aug for both freshers and continuing students. The extension was communicated on the official Makerere page earlier yesterday.
According to Africa hall Warden’s office, even with the payment of the non-teaching staff, the extension was needed.
“The semester had to be extended because you cannot just wake up and tell parents that things are fine now, bring your kids in a day. Parents have to be given time as stake holders in this,” the custodian told Campus Bee.
Today marks the 5th day into the non-teaching staff strike of Public Universities for over 56 billion demand in arrears and salaries from the government. The strike has affected a lot of people including offices of organisations in the University.
“This has been the most annoying strike ever. We need to accesses offices but the building are closed. I also have to travel to the US and needed funding which is impossible to get now,” Pius Mugagga of the Artificial Intelligence and Data Science labs, Makerere commented.
The government has not yet made an official communication about when to solve this issue which indicates there is a possibility of the semester being extended again if the non-teaching staff are not paid.
Jackson Batihamah the chairman of the Non-teaching staff association asserted that they won’t be resuming until payments are done.
