{UAH} Pojim/WBK: Makerere should up its game on exams
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Makerere should up its game on exams
Unknown to this chairman, his son rarely, if he ever did, stepped into any lecture theatre at the university! His routine at the university was quite predicable; drive to Wandegeya bars with a group of friends, then to AngeNoir discotheque – a popular dance hall for students – before returning to Lumumba hall, where he resided.
He would sleep the whole of the following day, having spent the previous night partying. He was a privately-sponsored student. His course was to last for three years.
And since universities don't issue termly progress reports, it never occurred to the father that the son was not studying. So, after the lapse of three years, it was time for graduation. The father attended the graduation ceremony in two capacities: as father and chairman of the council.
The son's name was not in the graduation booklet. The son blamed it on the sloppiness of the university administration that skipped his name. The father was convinced and threw a huge party where he invited his other dignified and prominent Ugandans.
The son was even able to get an academic transcript, with wonderful grades. Being a prominent person, he didn't find trouble to find his son a nice job in one of the highly-paying institutions.
The question is; how did the son who never attended a single lecture manage to get an academic transcript from the often touted 'Harvard of Africa!' There are many of this kind who are occupying prominent position in this country when they spent most of their time at university learning how to cheat examinations and manipulating the academic registrar's office.
Newspapers are awash with Makerere University examination malpractice scandals. Some lecturers have been accused of awarding marks to female students after sleeping with them – sex for marks. Some degrees have been recalled.
Last year, some workers in the academic registrar's office were arrested after a deal between them and a student went bad when the former failed to alter marks for the latter.
For years, many honest students have found their marks altered for fakes ones, and those who never stepped in class, or known by their colleagues in the departments (colleges) that they have retakes or failures, happen to pass at the expense of genuine students.
This wholesale embracing of private education at the university increases the potential for corruption. Prof Mahmood Mamdani partly highlighted this problem in his research: Scholars in the Marketplace The Dilemmas of Neo-Liberal Reform at Makerere University, 1989–2005. Mamdani says the reforms at Makerere to embrace privatisation of higher education was not home-grown; it was something that was guided by the World Bank, which then held a conviction that higher education is more of a private than a public good.
"Unfortunately for Makerere, the Museveni government in Uganda embraced the World Bank's perspective with the uncritical enthusiasm of a convert, so much that even when the Bank began to rethink its romance with the market, Uganda's political leadership held onto the dogma with the tenacity of an ideologue," says Mamdani.
The student numbers grew with the introduction of the privately-sponsored students' scheme, but the number of lecturers, teaching assistants and other resources including books, lecture theatres, and other materials didn't change to match these numbers.
Makerere, which has a fully-fledged college of information and communications technology, has failed to make use of it to fight and correct these malpractices. How can someone in the academic registrar's office have the sole privilege of altering marks for the candidates without a computer system sending a signal to the parent department that on such a date, someone changed these marks?
Makerere used to enjoy an exclusive domain of academic credentials; but now, with all these questions being poked at their examination integrity, that domain is slowly being taken over by some private institutions.
Financial survival of Makerere is also key. The university needs money to survive, and the bulk of it comes from private students. The government reduced education funding and largely relieved itself from this duty.
Opinions on corruption in Makerere vary. Not all private students are interested in academic growth per se, it is papers that they need. Now employers, both local and international, will have to ask the potential employee which particular years they were in Makerere.
It appears those who were there from 1990 to date will have an uphill task to convince the employer that the academic transcripts they carry are actually theirs. Instead of having a leash on the control of the quality of education, Makerere went into a mood, common with private entities, of satisfying the public demand on degrees and certificates that hardly mean what is represented, .
Prof John Ddumba-Ssentamu, the vice chancellor here, needs to do more than promising to investigate. The name of the once-revered institution is steadily descending into the pan. Makerere has to make a choice of either being a clearing house for just any degrees or a serious academic institution that is not out to respond to public demand for admissions.
pmkatunzi@observer.ug
The author is the finance director of The Observer Media Limited.
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