There has been a number of cases related to sexual harassment at Makerere University and most criminals have walked away unpunished. While appearing on NTV’s On the spot show last evening, the University’s Deputy Vice Chancellor in charge of finance and administration, Professor Barnabas Nawangwe revealed what he thinks is the major cause for the increased sexual related crimes.
Prof Nawangwe blamed shy victims who refuse to report these cases something that has left criminals free and repeating the same crimes again. “The problem is that these students don’t want to report. Let them come to us because we are dismissing everybody proven guilty,” he revealed last night.
It should be noted that a number of such suspects have been set free which police has attributed to lack of sufficient evidence. An example is a recent case where one of the students was forced to jump from the third floor of Mitchell Hall after she was reportedly about to be raped. Police revealed that the suspect involved was to be released few days after due to lack of enough evidence.
The professor also addressed the question of a highly populated university whereby the ratio of students is way bigger than lecturers. He revealed that instead of hiring more lecturers, the University management is reducing the number of students as advised by President Museveni.
Prof Nawangwe says that 5 years ago Makerere had over 60,000 students but they have managed to cut the population to 35,000 at the moment and continues to reduce.
According to Prof Nawangwe, Makerere is planning to concentrate on research and leave human resource related studies to other Universities in the country.
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