The Minister of State for Higher Education, John Chrysestom Muyingo
The Attorney General, Kiwanuka Kiryowa has assured both the local and international community not to reject degrees and masters attained by students from Uganda education institutions, saying there is no legal provision that provides for the expiry of courses, but rather, the courses are under review.
Kiryowa made the remarks in response to queries raised by MPs during the debate on the statement on the recent reports that National Council of Higher Education (NHCE) had declared some courses being taught in some Universities as expired, due to the failure by the Universities to submit their courses for review within the stipulated time.
“The use of the word expiry may have been overboard and that was their choice and I think they are going to correct that, but under our law, there is no provision of expiry of courses. Courses are continuous, so the country needs to remain calm, the courses are still valid, it was just a bad choice of words. But I think the review is going on, NCHE is continuing to make the review to make them applicable to the circumstances that obtain with the changing circumstances in the world,” said Attorney General.
The Attorney General’s remarks were in reaction to a concern raised by Deputy Speaker Thomas Tayebwa who castigated the NCHE for causing a national crisis by declaring courses under review as expired, arguing that the damage done to higher institutions of learning has caused a longtime damage to Uganda.
The Deputy Speaker said, “Sometimes we love using strong words without knowing the impact they will have one day, why use the word expired? If someone presented to you a product that was declared expired, it is expired do away with it, start afresh and yet you are just going to do a review. I think you need to direct NCHE to write that these programmes are under review. Because you aren’t saying that do away with the curriculum completely, but if it is expired, you throw in a dustbin. So don’t throw our courses in the dustbin.”
The Minister of State for Higher Education, John Chrysestom Muyingo in his statement noted that the re-assessment of Programmes is intended to ensure quality and relevance of graduates and the expiry of accreditation, as reflected of the NCHE website, means that the programme needs re-assessment to establish whether the key aspects upon which accreditation was granted are still in place and no programmne will receive this label once institutions conform to the requirements for re-assessment.
Minister Muyingo said, “The Ministry wishes to reassure the general public that qualifications awarded by Higher Education Institutions in Uganda are highly regarded both at home and abroad. Graduates from these institutions continue to receive international admissions, recognition and acclaim. The Ministry disassociates itself from all media reports from any institution other than NCHE on expired programmes. This is so as to avoid circulation of fake information that could alarm the public.”
The Ministry of Education blamed the expired course debacle on inadequate staffing, transport facilities to take physical facility verification teams to the field and inadequate funding for operational and development purposes.
Dickson Kateshumbwa (Sheema Municipality) rejected the argument of shortage of funding, accusing the Executive of trying to pit Parliament against the public.
He said, “The budget comes from Government, it comes here, we set the ceilings, you identify priorities and provide the funding. If there are priorities under NCHE why don’t you provide funding as cabinet? Why do you want the public to think that Parliament hasn’t done work? You are pitting Parliament against the public. The percentage that this Parliament adjusts is less than 10%”
But the Deputy Speaker pointed out that the Quality Assurance Department of NCHE has 12 people and it is supposed to assess and they are supposed to assess 4500 courses, which could explain why Universities are saying they submitted the courses for review but didn’t get feedback yet the same Council has declared these courses expired.
Asuman Basalirwa (Bugiri Municipality) questioned the rationale behind review of courses in Uganda, after the same Council has already issued licenses.
John Twesigye, Chairperson Education Committee informed Parliament that the Ministry of Education, NHCE and other stakeholders have been summoned before the Committee, which prompted the Deputy Speaker to refer the statement to the Committee for further scrutiny.
