Makerere college system at one year

When Makerere’s University Council first proposed to turn the institution into constituent colleges in 1996, there was a hushed silence across the university. Eleven years later, the council sanctioned the former medical school to become the College of Health Sciences on December 1, 2007 as a pilot project. And four years later, Makerere has now transformed into a collegiate university with nine colleges and a Law School.

According to the gazette of December 30, 2011, Makerere colleges include: Agricultural and Environmental Sciences; Business and Management Sciences; Computing and Information Sciences; Education and External Studies; Engineering, Design, Art and Technology. It also has: Natural Sciences, Humanities and Social Sciences, Veterinary Medicine, Animal Resource and Bio-Security as well the pioneer Health Sciences College.

Vice Chancellor Prof Venansius Baryamureeba, revealed that the lone School of Law is expected to transform into a college by the end of the year.
“This is pioneering effort by Makerere and I’m sure several other universities are going to see the advantages in this effort and follow suit,” said Baryamureeba last week.

Federal system of governance

Prof Venansius Baryamureeba

Baryamureeba is convinced that turning Makerere into a collegiate university will ease its governance and advance progress in every field.

“The vice chancellor and senior management at the centre will no longer have to look at every problem. Instead, they will allow the principals to develop their colleges and then focus on problem areas that need urgent support,” he said.

Under the Universities and Other Institutions Act of 2001, Makerere’s principals will now have the power to run the colleges under the vice chancellor’s supervision. Principals will be responsible for spearheading research innovations, knowledge transfer and other academic activities. They will also have administrative authority and some limited control over finances in the colleges, explained Baryamureeba. The system is expected to also evolve financially, where each college will have a bursar, who reports to the university bursar at the centre to ensure appropriate use of funds.

“ We have finance units in all colleges and the approval process for payment is split between the units and the centre; regardless of the threshold (one signatory at the centre and the other at the unit)  because there can’t be a situation where you can, say, make a payment without the centre knowing,” the university bursar, Joshua Karamagi explained.

Consequently, most student activities will be handled by the colleges. For instance, each college will be able to register students, monitor their academic progress at all levels (from undergraduate to postgraduate) and recommend them for graduation.

“Over time, we’ll even allow colleges to start their courses at different times of the year to optimize university resources and improve services for students,” Baryamureeba explained.

Changes at the centre

The restructuring is not confined to the colleges; the centre has already seen several changes to complement the college system. The office of the Dean of Students was recently moved out of the main building to the Senate building. And the two offices will soon be replicated at college level to bring services closer to students. Soon, the Planning directorate will move into the main building along with Investment to work closely with Finance.

The old deans forum, where the various faculty deans met with the vice chancellor once a month, has since been replaced with the principals’ meeting where college officials meet with senior management twice a month, to help improve the system.

“This meeting is a listening post for us to assess how the principals are addressing issues across the university. If any problems arise in any college, we usually get the signal from here,” said Baryamureeba.

Problem  areas

Although the collegiate system is new, it has inherited old problems.  Last October, in a meeting of principals, Baryamureeba demanded that the various colleges look at ways of optimizing resource use, following last year’s staff strike, which among other issues, demanded for increased pay.

“We acknowledge that staff need more pay in form of top-up allowances and so on. There was the concern that some colleges remunerate their staff better than others. I don’t think all staff can get the same pay across the board, but I tasked each college to propose ways of improving the situation, so we can work at the problem,” he said.

All other colleges have restructured to a point where they’ll improve their operations except, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHUSS), which will now be expected to submit to a restructuring committee, headed by Prof Frederick Jjuuko of the School of Law.  

According to a December 29, 2011 letter by Baryamureeba to the committee and the CHUSS principal, the team will review and analyze all courses taught in CHUSS and assess the continued viability of departments in the college and submit a report by the end of the month.

“By the beginning of the next academic year, we hope that the college will be running only viable courses and using its staff optimally. Expect changes in February,” he said.

Baryamureeba wondered why a college would insist on 23 Bachelor of Arts courses, when a quarter of them don’t have students. The move, Baryamureeba hopes, will eventually lead to guidelines that will lead to staff retention by each college. “On the whole, we are not in a crisis with regard to staff retention; Makerere is heading towards equilibrium as we are able to train and replace those who leave. In addition, those above 50 are not leaving,” he said.

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