Prof Nawangwe directs Mak HODs to submit list of expired courses

Makerere University Vice Chancellor Prof Barnabas Nawangwe has directed Heads of Departments (HODs), schools, and colleges to immediately submit updated lists of expired courses and programmes.

This follows a revelation by the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) that over 2,200 courses and programmes being taught in both public and private institutions expired with some dating as far back as 13 years and have not been submitted for review.

According to the list posted on the Council’s website, Makerere University has the highest number of affected courses.

Now in a memo issued to the university staff today, Prof Nawangwe says the institution is currently in the press, along with other universities, for the wrong reasons.

He notes that a number of their academic programmes are not accredited by the Council and this has led to the denial of admission to some of their graduates for higher degrees by some European universities, raising concerns among members of the public.

Nawangwe blames the problem on laxity partly on their side due to unacceptable delays in the review of some programmes by departments, schools, and colleges, and occasionally at the Senate level for re-accreditation as required by law.

“While on the side of the NCHE, there have been delays in processing programmes for accreditation and also delays in updating their website”, he says.

He adds that their programmes that appeared on the NCHE website as expired include; programmes that have either been discontinued or merged with other programmes and those that have already been submitted to the NCHE for accreditation.

Written by Damali Mukhaye