Yasiin Mugerwa and Agness Nandutu
27 November 2007
Kampala — AN estimated 1,500 students formerly admitted by Makerere University Business School are stuck after authorities at the main campus refused to recognise them as students of Makerere University, Parliament heard yesterday.
Prof, Wasswa Balunywa, the principal of Mubs, appealed yesterday to the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee to intervene.
"We accepted if we (Mubs) made an error on our part, but let's forget the past and
help students. We need your assistance and the government should talk to Makerere to solve the problem as soon as possible," Prof Balunywa said during a PAC session yesterday.
The affected students were admitted by Mubs last year to programmes, which were not accredited by the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE). The programmes include; Bachelor of Business Accounting, Bachelor of Finance, Bachelor of Real Estate Management and Bachelor of Statistics among others. Such programmes, according to a list released by NCHE recently are not recognised.
This dilemma follows Cabinet's flat rejection of Mubs claim to being an independent public university.
The stranded students are part of the 3,000 who were admitted for various university programmes for the academic year 2007/08, and nearly 1,500 of those were to move to public universities such as Makerere and Kyambogo.
This was after a High Court Judge ruled that Mubs was an independent university from Makerere University.
Cabinet in its ruling said the stranded students would be distributed to state universities.
The Cabinet agreed that a committee will be formed to re-examine the admissions and accordingly recommend how these students would be shared among government universities.
According to the Cabinet directive, Mubs remained an affiliate business college of Makerere University. It also remained with its independent administrative and financial structures such as a council and an academic board - the equivalent of a university senate.
But according to Prof Balunywa, Makerere is reluctant to explain why Mubs students cannot be admitted.
"We submitted students' names to Makerere some time back but up to now we don't know why over 1,500 students are yet to be admitted. These students are anxious and are eagerly still waiting for a response from Makerere," Prof Balunywa said.
In his response, Mr Gilbert Kadilo, the Makerere publicist said; "Makerere cannot accept students who were admitted on illegal courses. And anybody outside legal programmes, we don't know and we cannot accept."
When contacted yesterday, Ms Namirembe Bitamazire, the Education minister said; "We are working on a special arrangement to solve this problem. We are handling the matter with Makerere senate and it is in advanced stages."
In a statement on August 20, 2007, the Ministry of education said it would ask Makerere University to regularise and recognise all students admitted to Mubs.
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