News coming in from the Ivory Tower indicates that Makerere University is planning to scrap over 70 academic programmes and reduce the current programmes from 150 to just 80. It is also said that was aimed at reducing the student’s population.
Rendering to Makerere University new strategic plan, University will transform into a research-led university with effect from the next academic year (2020/2021). There will be a gradual shift to increase graduate enrolment, knowledge production and reduce undergraduate academic programmes and students.
Makerere University Vice chancellor Professor Barnabas Nawangwe said there is a lot of duplication in programmes which called for the scrapping and merging of some. He revealed that the process of scrapping programmes started about 10 years ago when the 400 courses were reduced to 250 and again to the current 150.
Prof Nawangwe also explained that the strategy is also aimed at reducing the student numbers from about 35,000 students to just 25,000 to improve on the student to lecturer ratio.
“We currently have a large population of students and few lecturers. Many of our staff cannot carry out research because of the big student numbers. The quality of their staff at many universities is a challenge. The current strategic plan enables us to help out by training lecturers for such universities. Of the targeted 25,000 students, 10,000 will be graduate students and 15,000 undergraduates,’’ He explained.
A source in the academic registrar’s department said that most of the affected programmes will be under Economics and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences such as Development Studies and Business Administration.
These will become course units in other mainstream programmes. Other programmes to be merged are Bachelor of Statistics and Bachelor of Business Statistics as well as Community Psychology and Industrial and Organizational Psychology.
