The Makerere University Lessons in Privatisation: Affirmative Action for Science

Crisis of underfunding
Until 1991, Makerere University, which relied 100 percent on public funding for both tuition and living expenses for all its students, was the most underfunded university in the Eastern and Southern Africa Region. Its gross unit cost in 1984 stood at USD 345 when the average unit cost in the region was USD 2,000. A university professor’s official salary was less than USD 50 per month, and many lecturers had to make ends meet by moonlighting in such jobs as driving taxis, running shops or kiosks, or teaching in secondary school. Many other academics left the country in search of greener pastures. The financial squeeze manifested itself further in deteriorating buildings, constant power failures, and breakdowns in the water supply system. Journal subscription declined drastically, as did the purchase of chemicals, textbooks, and science laboratory equipment. Research publishing nearly dried up.

The Government was not ready to provide the funds needed by the university, nor was it ready to let the university introduce cost sharing, for fear of student protest actions. Students at Makerere University insisted on free tuition, free food, and free accommodation and even pocket money popularly known as ‘boom’. Every time students’ benefits were tampered with, they would put on their academic gowns and march to State House or to Parliament to exact their demands. In 1990, the government abolished the students’ transport allowance and introduced a ‘book bank’ in place of a book allowance; students went on strike, resulting in a confrontation with police during which two students died. The academic staff soon realised that they were absorbing the brunt of the financial squeeze by being passive. They organized themselves into strike action.

The private student scheme
In the meantime, the demand for university places far outstripped supply. For example, in 1990/91 out of 6,000 candidates who met the minimum entry requirements, Makerere University and two other new universities could not absorb more than 2,500 students. This created cut-throat competition for university places and escalated the cut-off points for admission to Makerere University. Some parents resorted to sending their children abroad as the next best alternative.

As students’ activism resisted any form of cost sharing, the university’s response to the stalemate was to privatise some places in normal regular programmes, launching new private programmes, offering existing programmes to a second cohort of student in the evening and also to introduce Distance Education Programmes.

The response, although not abrupt was a real breakthrough. The number of private students which started at 300 in 1991/92 when the government sponsored ones were 6,500 grew very quickly to reach 15,000 when the government sponsored students were still 7,500.

A complete transformation
The Private Students Scheme at Makerere University not only multiplied student numbers, but brought fundamental changes to the university in such areas as governance, curriculum and mode of delivery and finance and structure of incentive. A semester system to create more flexibility for self-financed students has replaced the traditional term system. New market-driven courses have been introduced while existing ones have undergone major reviews and Evening and Distance Education Programmes have been introduced. Remunerations to staff have improved to the level where for example, a professor who used to get less than USD 50 a month now gets almost USD 1,000. A decentralised system of administration has replaced the previous system where all financial and academic management powers used to be concentrated at the centre. This was also an incentive for those who could work hard and generate private income to have greater control over such funds. The decentralisation however, means that the Vice Chancellor’s powers to transfer funds from units which generate income to those which are starved of it are very much curtailed.

The recovery of Makerere University which is at the apex of the education system has positively impacted on the entire education system right from the tertiary level to the primary. At the tertiary level the number of universities has increased from one to 10 while the introduction of Universal Primary Education more than doubled primary enrolment from 2.5 million to 6.5 million. In Uganda, education has become the most vibrant sector in the socio-economic set-up today.

Poor response of science disciplines
Although the university as an Institution recorded considerable progress, science based disciplines could not immediately respond to the higher education liberalisation. Whereas the Faculties of Social Sciences and Law had 2,968 (74 percent) and 1,189 (79 percent) fee paying students, those of Science and Medicine had only 350 (39 percent) and 411 (43 percent).
In terms of income generating, the Faculties of Law and Social Sciences collected a total of Ushs. 1,804 million and Ushs. 1,803 million respectively against Shs. 400 million and 487 million for the Faculties of Sciences and Medicine in 2001/02. Given the meagre incomes available to the Faculties of Sciences and Medicine they could not provide extra pay to staff. On the other hand, on top of the university official salary which is estimated at about USD 500 for a Senior Lecturer, the staff in Social Sciences and Law earn an extra Ushs. 1,000,000 equivalent to USD 550 from teaching in day and evening private programmes. Although it could be argued that staff in science based disciplines could use their extra time during the day and evening to engage in research which could bring additional financial benefit, it is evident that they remain poorly paid compared to their counterparts in humanities.

A detailed review of the implementation of the Makerere University Strategic Plan 1996/97–1998/99 revealed that all the laboratory-based disciplines were generally lagging behind in adjustment. They could not run evening programmes because they still found it difficult to conduct experiments at night and carry out fieldwork. The sciences still lacked equipment, and chemicals. The capacity for science based disciplines to take on private students so as to generate income is inelastic.

Can sciences charge higher fees?
There are two ways in which faculties can step up income from student fees. The first one is to recruit more students without reducing fees per student. The foregoing discussion has indicated that this option is constrained by the limited teaching capacity in science disciplines.

The second option is to charge higher fees in science faculties. According to a recent study carried out with NORAD support the unit cost per student in the Faculty of Medicine was found to be Ushs. 9,212,000 whereas the current fee level for private students is Ushs. 1,920,000. Thus private students in the Faculty of Medicine pay 21 percent of what it costs to train a medical student. In the Faculty of Law according to the same study, the realistic unit cost is Ushs. 3,400,000 when the students are currently paying Ushs. 1,200,000 which is 35 percent of what it costs. While the fees charged in sciences are higher in absolute figures, compared to what it costs the science based disciplines are more underpaid for each private student they enrol than the humanities.

Fee adjustment is considered to be a politically sensitive issue in Uganda today due to a number of factors. First, in Uganda the general incomes are very low with GDP per capita of USD 300. Thus, even the current fee levels of about Ushs. 1,200,000 are by our standard quite prohibitive and there are no such alternatives as loan schemes. Secondly, the number of private students who would be affected by the fee revision has become the dominant majority and any upward fee revision is bound to spark off some repercussions. The private students are paying the existing fees grudgingly because their counterparts who are sponsored by Government are fully taken care of by the state. Thus, the possibility of increasing income for sciences, through charging higher fees is riddled with numerous obstacles.

Affirmative action for science education
In view of the fact that the science based disciplines could not cope with the privatisation of higher education, the current Makerere University Strategic Plan 2000/01–2004/05 decided to address this phenomenon through targeted intervention. Attempts to target more Government funds to sciences have not yielded tangible results as most of the existing funds are fully committed. The attention therefore shifted to donor support. A number of donors have come to the aid of the university in accordance with the strategic plan priorities to support science education. These include Sida/SAREC which is supporting ICT, research, library resources and staff development for the Faculties of Medicine, Technology, Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine. Other development partners that have provided support to beef up the teaching of sciences have included NORAD, Pfizer Foundation and Carnegie Corporation of New York. While this support has gone a long way to developing capacity for science education at Makerere University, it has been realised that most development partners, with the exception of NORAD and Pfizer Foundation, have become reluctant to invest in construction of buildings even when it happens to be a major critical constraint.