Makerere’s woes and the indifference towards them is a good example of the slow and undignified death of intellectualism in our society. Pick any undergraduate at random and try to speak to them about something contemporary (visiting dancehall musicians and premier league football don’t count). Or simply ask them to spell or present a structured argument. You will cry in your beer. Let’s stop the blame game and do some radical things at Makerere. Cut admissions by half. Let every prospective student sit an aptitude test. Raise the tuition fees to reflect the real cost of teaching. Invest the money into better facilities and improved pay for lecturers and support staff. Put in place a means-tested scholarship scheme for poor but bright students, a loan scheme for others. Let the rest go to vocational school. Not everyone needs to have a degree – but we could use lots more professional plumbers, builders, mechanics, welders, etc. Have government set aside Shs100 billion a year to invest in infrastructure at public universities. Take it out of the election ‘youth fund’ recently given to the Gender ministry. Make sure most of it goes to smart infrastructure, such as webcasts of lectures and e-libraries so students can study off-site and at their convenience. However, keep some for bricks and mortar and cure us the shame of, for instance, a wing at the great Lumumba Hall being closed for years because of filthy blocked toilets. Then privatise the halls of residence or charge realistic rents. If we are unable to make such radical choices, the lecturers should take up the goat-rearing advice. They are already herding sheep at the university as it were, and the President knows a thing or two about being a herdsman. [email protected] Twitter: Daniel Kalinaki
Posted on: Thu, 29 Aug 2013 14:43:58 +0000
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