The committee that scrutinized the Auditor General’s report ending June 30 2023, noted that out of Makerere University’s 347 courses it is currently teaching, only 149 are fully accredited or reviewed leaving out a whopping 198 courses.
Legislators sitting on the Public Accounts Committee have expressed concern over the continued practice by public universities to teach courses that have not been accredited. In their report submitted to Parliament, the MPs say the practice not only compromises the quality of the graduates but also affects university ranking and the students that graduate from the affected courses get challenges of admission to international and local learning institutions.
The committee that scrutinized the Auditor General’s report ending June 30 2023, noted that out of Makerere University’s 347 courses it is currently teaching, only 149 are fully accredited or reviewed leaving out a whopping 198 courses. In their interactions with the university officials, they were told that the academic program review involves a comprehensive process, including departmental, stakeholder consultations, school and college reviews, Senate and Senate Committees, Quality Assurance Committee, and University Council which all take a lot of time.
The case is the same with other universities. For example, Gulu University has 106 active taught programme of which only 81 are fully accredited, Mbarara University of Science and Technology has only 60 out of 94 courses accredited. The same with Busitema and Kyambogo among others. The issue of teaching unaccredited course has been prevalent in many universities including the private ones. These universities have thrown the blame on the feet of the National Council for High Education which they say take long before finishing the processes of accreditation.
Meanwhile, the report also noted that a number of public universities experienced revenue shortfalls resulting from under release of funds by the Ministry of Finance. These revenue shortfalls, the Committee observed imply that the universities could not fully fulfil their obligations hence affecting the their service delivery. The Committee noted that collectively, universities suffered a Shs 47.11billion lack of funding yet parliament had already appropriated the money.
Busitema, Kabale, Soroti and Gulu had their budgets not funded up to 15 percent. Interestingly, the Committee report also noted that despite the lack of full funding, even the money that some of the universities got, they failed to absorb all of it which translated into underperformance and non-implementation of some the planned activities.
The Committee noted that collectively, universities failed to utilize Shs 25.17billion “The Committee observed that under-absorption of funds does not only distort budgetary planning but also starves other deserving entities which fail to implement their plans as a result of inadequate financing,” the report reads in part.
The report looked at the following public universities and Tertiary Institutions; Makerere, Kyambogo, Gulu, Lira, Soroti, Busitema, Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Makerere University Business School, Muni, Kabale, Mountain of the Moon, Uganda Management Institute and Law Development Center.
