The Uganda Veterinary Board (UVA) has suspended the registration of all veterinary graduates from Makerere University over poor training structures, a move that will see the current students pursuing veterinary medicine unable to practice their profession until the situation is rectified by the University.
The revelation was made by Barnabas Nawangwe, Vice Chancellor Makerere University, while appearing before Parliament’s Education Committee to present the University’s 2023/2024 ministerial policy statement, where he warned that the failure to address concerns raised by the Board could have far reaching negative consequences for Uganda.
He said: “The Veterinary’s Board has suspended the registration of veterinary graduates because they say the facilities aren’t adequate enough, of course we have many more students than we had several years back, and the facilities in their opinion aren’t adequate.”
The Uganda Veterinary Board is the profession regulatory body established by an Act of Parliament (The Veterinary Surgeons Act 1958, Cap 277), composed of seven veterinarians and are appointed by the Minister of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries with approval of Cabinet.
The body is mandated to ensure that animal health services are offered by qualified, registered and licensed veterinary professionals under their regulatory supervision and in the execution of its mandate, the body carries out; registration of professionals and their premises of practice; establishment of standards for training, practice and professional conduct of veterinary professionals; provision of guidance and support for continuing professional development programmes and community education.
The Vice Chancellor also admitted that a similar warning has been issued by another professional body, medical and dental practitioners’ council to halt the registration of medical graduates due to unacceptable training infrastructure and inadequate staffing of the respective college of medicine.
“And also the Medical and Dental Practitioners’ after resolving the issue of dentists and we now have the best dental school in East Africa, now the council believes that even the facilities for training medical doctors aren’t good enough and they have given a warning that unless they improve, they are going to suspend the registration. If those two things happen, then if those two things happen, then it is a big problem for our country,” added Nawangwe.
Nawangwe informed the Committee that Makerere University requires Shs52.9Bn to renovate the facilities at the College of Medicine and veterinary medicine, noting that although the President gave a directive to renovate the facilities at the two colleges, funding has not been realized and urged Parliament to pay special attention to these issues and help the University to resolve them.
He said, “The President gave a directive to avail funds, to improve the facilities at all the medical schools in Uganda and we have already given our budget to the Ministry of Finance where we need Shs52Bn to renovate and improve the facilities at the two colleges. Of course we don’t need all that money in one year, we can’t even spend it, but we should be given some money to begin so these councils see that we are making some effort.”
Jenifer Alanyo (UPDF Representative) urged fellow lawmakers to support the renovations cause stating, “We really need to support the University to make them support better. My former medical school is under stress of dilapidation, the infrastructure isn’t measuring up, we need to support them so that the school measures up.”
Agnes Acibu (Nebbi DWR) expressed fears over the latest development and urged fellow legislators to support the cause of Makerere renovating these College infrastructure noting, “I think we need to be conscious and attentive to this and all this is coming to finance. I hope all of us are aware of the economic condition of this country, and it calls upon the University administration to set priority. I believe this information when it reaches the students who fall within this docket, automatically psychologically they will be affected.”
John Twesigye, Chairperson Education Committee expressed shock at the development and tasked Makerere University to explain what the administration has been doing to rectify the issues raised by the professional bodies, before the suspension and warning were slapped on the University.
However, this isn’t the first time that the University’s dilapidated structures are coming under scrutiny by authorities, with Kampala Capital City Authority having also threatened to close halls of residence at Makerere, over poor living conditions, a threat that prompted the University to embark on multi-billion renovation works, starting with Livingstone and Mary Stuart halls this year.
