Why Makerere Should Embrace a Business Approach

Published on 26th August 2013

Makerere University in Uganda
The management of Universities should adopt business approaches in the running of universities if we are to have sustainable universities that deliver on their core and broader mandates. Makerere should urgently transform its management from traditional academic heavy chancellors and vice Chancellors to entrepreneurial and agile chief executive officers that ought to be evaluated in terms of revenue and earnings, and balance sheets, and profit-and-loss statements – accruing from core university businesses and auxiliary ventures.

In this approach/business, a University Chief Executive is expected to drive production and sell of top notch intellectual resources, innovations and nimble human resources that sustain university development and broadly drive national, regional and global transformation. Unfortunately this worldview is not shared by largely academic centered and methodical guardians of Makerere University.

Section 31 of the Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act 2001 (as amended) which provides that there shall be a Vice Chancellor for each public University who shall be responsible for the academic, administrative and financial affairs of the University and Section 32 of the same Act that provides for the Deputy Vice Chancellors should be further amended or strengthened to remove academics from these roles and hand them over to entrepreneurial Chief Executives. Universities like Wageningen in Netherlands is already reaping big from this approach.

Without  doubt, if you want a glimpse into what has gone wrong with higher education in Uganda, look no further than the state of Makerere University- the Oldest University in East Africa, now at 90 years. Look at its management style and quality. Look at the state of its products, infrastructure, hygiene, sanitation and wider learning environment. Look at its increasing absence in national intellectual and democratic discourse. Makerere is sick.

Those who have recently walked on that campus or tried to secure their certificates, transcripts or undertake certification of their documents know what I am talking about. There is sheer lack of corporate discipline and culture at Makerere University.  If, the current stale state of affairs at that university continue, Makerere will be a problem for Uganda. It will continue to produce half-baked graduates that need retooling if they are to be hired by government and growing private sector. The research papers of its professors will not be published in international journals, making its ability to influence global intellectual agenda mute and, its research and innovation products unable to attract and merit commercialization investments from especially venture fund capitalists and angel investors that are looking for imaginative and bankable ideas around the world.

Makerere needs to re-imagine its future. Makerere can longer live and prosper on their new proposals to hike student tuition and fees, tribute from loyal donors, and government largesse.

On 24th January 2012, Makerere University became transformed into a Collegiate University (with 9 Constituent Colleges) just like University of Cambridge and University of Oxford that have operated as Collegiate Universities for decades. On the same day, the nine (9) Makerere University Constituent Colleges were launched by H.E. President Mwai Kibaki, the then President of the Republic of Kenya and H.E. President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda at a colorful ceremony that witnessed H.E. President Mwai Kibaki awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws of Makerere University. This was a step in the right direction, especially to curb duplication of courses and to devolve power and give more autonomy to colleagues to innovate, expand and build strategic partnerships with private sector and other networks and conquer markets in Africa, starting with Eastern Africa, South Sudan.

It is perhaps too early to demand for results of this arrangement – but now that the brain behind it, Professor Venensious Baryamureba who acted more like a business executive is out, I hope that  the new regime at Makerere will not undo this. These colleges should also not be run by academic and methodical deans – but rather by entrepreneurial managers/executives.

Makerere has benchmarks to learn from and immense resources to harness to prosperity. When Stanford University started the Silicon Valley in 1930– nobody knew that soon the valley will produce Google.inc, Hewlett Packard and Eastman Kodak and General Electric. Indeed, from April 2010 to April 2012, the valley created a net 7,300 jobs according to the California Employment Development Department. Can we have a Makerere that transforms Katanga slum into the Silicon Valley or a technology city of Uganda? Makerere should switch into a thinking and action mode. It’s never too late to start making things happen.

By Morrison Rwakakamba
Special Presidential Assistant – Research & Information
[email protected]


This article has been read 1,636 times
COMMENTS