By Mariam Namakula
The National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) has clarified on the matter of expired courses saying that the expiry of accreditation did not mean expiry of a programme but rather the need to reassess whether the key aspects upon which accreditation was granted was still in place.
The officials also added that the NCHE only re- assesses a programme when there is need to implement NCHE regulations regarding minimum standards, the adherence to the program design, the content, duration, contact hours and assessment of what is taught, relevance of what is taught for the job market and the nation and lastly the quality of graduates
“The NCHE accredits academic or professional programs as per it’s mandate based on prescribed set of Quality Assurance Capacity Indicators specified in the Quality Assurance Regulatory Framework,” statement reads in part.
Adding that these indicators therefore included infrastructure and human resources available for implementing in addition to assessing the quality and relevance of the programme and it’s learning out comes as well as the teaching and learning methods. Urging that institutions ought to re- submit their programmes for approval in the given durations. Urging the institutions to constantly seek approval in the specified duration.
On Sunday, Ugandans academia was blown into storm when a Ms Shamim Nambassa, a pharmacist but also dubs as Makerere University’s 87th guild president, shared a post of allegedly an email from the University of Bristol on twitter rejecting an application for an alumnus on grounds of having expired course
“We accept applicants with a Bachelor’s degree from a Ugandan university with programme accreditation, we use the NHCE website …,” an official of the University of Bristol wrote in reply to the Uganda applicant.
The letter added: “The entry for the Bachelor of Biomedical Laboratory for Makerere University indicates that this programme was accredited on March 26, 2010 to March 26, 2015 and it expired in 2015. As you graduated in 2018 after the programme accreditation expired, we are therefore unable to accept your qualification.”
Withholding the identity of the applicant, Nambassa expressed her concern of how graduates especially those at Ugandans leading university, Makerere were missing out on various opportunities because of failure to reassess their courses a mandate given to the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE)
Parliament established NCHE by an Act principally to implement the Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act, 2001, assigning it the mandate to guide on the establishment of institutions of higher learning, their licensing and accreditation as well as accreditation of their academic programmes.
“Graduates of @Makerere are missing out on various opportunities because the courses they studied expired and their accreditation hasn’t been renewed,” Ms Nambassa tweeted, emphasizing the need for “as soon as possible” resolution of the issue.
Like expected however, the issue did not settle well for the over 2,260 Students’ courses being taught at the 47 public and private universities reflected on the Council website indicating an expiry of about eight to a dozen years ago, owing it to among others, the incompliance of the NCHE through un updated information, high costs of accreditation summing to around Shs700,000 for each course unit and the call to increase on the grace period of Five years for Masters, Bachelors, diploma and Higher Education Certificates and 10 for PHDs respectively
An expired or invalid course, in this case, is a degree or diploma programme not duly accredited for teaching by the NCHE, such qualifications are allegedly regarded illegally and technically null and void. This however applies to year of entry and not graduation
Africa’s number 13 and Ugandans oldest university Makerere remains top with 159, of uncategorized courses on NCHE website as “invalid”, followed by Bugema and Bishop Stuart universities, tied at 63, Kabale University (59), Busitema (28), and Mbarara University of Science and Technology or MUST (34).
Others include Cavendish University (34), Uganda Christian University (UCU), Makerere University Business Schools or Mubs (25), Mountains of the Moon University in Fort Portal (18), All Saints University Lango (14), Ankole Western University (4), and Avance International University (5).
“arch institutions like @Makerere, ministry of education and sports, @MoICT_Ug , national council of higher education etc, has no capacity to make research, revise their curriculum time to time to meet the needs of the 21st century skills required. Oh God!” a one Joseph Twine wondered on Twitter
Undergraduate and graduate programmes declared “expired” at various institutions straddle humanities and sciences, among them, law, mass communications, business administration, civil and building engineering, biochemistry, and human medicine
