The Minister for Education, Janet Museveni has asked the Education Service Commission to ensure that Makerere University Business School (MUBS) gets a new principal before Prof. Waswa Balunywa’s contract expires next month to “avoid a leadership vacuum.’’
Balunywa has been MUBS principal over two decades. In a letter dated April 11, Mrs.Museveni , notes: “The purpose of this letter is to inform you that you advertise this post of Principal of MUBS as soon as you receive a formal submission from the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Education and Sports.”
Prof. Balunywa has been at the helm of the Nakawa based institute, MUBS since its inception in 1997 as director, having been formed out of a merger between the former faculty of Commerce at Makerere University and the then National College of Business Studies, Nakawa.
Prof. Balunywa then briefly resigned in 1998 after a clash between him and his Makerere University bosses but was re-appointed to lead the school as Principal through a presidential directive. President Museveni, then Chancellor of Makerere University, for which MUBS is a constituent college, overlooked the wishes of the Makerere officials then and even elevated Prof. Balunywa from position of director to Principal.
September 2015, Prof. Balunywa said he will be leaving [ May 2018] the position of MUBS partly out of frustration with government for overlooking MUBS from elevating it to a fully-fledged university, therefore blocking the institutions internal growth – both in terms of structures and human resources. “We are stuck,” he said.
“There is nothing anymore for me to do. There’s no growth for me and other people. We can’t offer degree programmes in Mbale and Jinja because Makerere has refused to approve them,” he told Daily Monitor.
He is accredited for a number of achievements at MUBS, which among others include the growing of the institution to an autonomous status and population growth from about 8000 students in 1997 to more than 17000.
MUBS lecturers are also well-trained in various fields . Most of them have PHDs. In 2016, MUBS had 21 students graduating with PHDs and almost 50 students are enrolled for different PHD programs both internally and externally.
