Educationists are blaming both the National Council of Higher Education (NCHE) and university management systems for failing on their job.
This follows a report by the Daily Monitor that millions of current and former students at various universities in Uganda are doomed after it emerged that the courses they are pursuing or completed are invalid since they expired.
An expired or invalid course, is a degree or diploma programme that is not duly accredited for teaching by the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE), the sector statutory regulator.
Speaking to KFM, Modern Musiimenta, the country director STiR Education, an international NGO that supports education systems in India and Uganda attributes the current crisis to a system failure at both universities and the education Council for failing to carry out their oversight role.
“The challenge points to a problem of systems, you have on one hand, universities that have fully fledged academic registrar’s departments that are supposed to follow up and ensure that every course advertised for learners to apply is accredited. On the other hand, you have NCHE which is In charge of supervising institutions not playing its oversight role,” said Mr Musiimenta.
Musiimenta says the alternative for affected students and parents should be to sue the council for fleecing them of the Shs20,000 annual fees they pay to the council for supervision.
“It’s unfair for learners and parents who pay their money every year to the national council to see that it is sleeping on the job,” he added.
He recommends that the best thing to do would be to sue both the council and the respective universities.
The crisis has come to the fore after the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom reportedly declined to admit an alumna of Makerere University, who had studied a Bachelor of Biomedical Laboratory Technology, to pursue an advanced degree.
