By Mulengera Reporters
On Wednesday, Minister Peter Ogwang led a group of top officials from the Education Ministry and also from the relevant agencies like NCHE, the regulator and Kyambogo University.
The MPs of the Education Affairs Committee had days earlier received a petition from aggrieved students who accused Kyambogo top management of enrolling them on a two-year diploma program to undertake courses which had never been accredited by the NCHE.
The students were on government sponsorship and their concerns, raised from as early as their orientation week, were ignored and disregarded by the University which went ahead to graduate them with qualifications, which the regulator doesn’t recognize.
The same University continued enrolling students on the same academic programs for subsequent years, an act of defiant indifference over which MPs want Kyambogo University top officials punished.
On Friday, the Kyambogo matter was officially tabled and entertained before the Committee in presence of the complainants and Kyambogo University which was represented by the Deputy Vice Chancellor in charge of Finance & Administration.
The Vice Chancellor, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Kyambogo University, wasn’t present. The meeting was pushed to Wednesday with a resumption session at which Kyambogo, the MoES and NCHE were all represented.
But MPs were unhappy to see that Kyambogo University was this time round not appropriately represented. They sent ladies from the office of Academic Registrar who the MPs considered to be too junior. They called this an insult by Katunguka.
MPs asserted that this shows that Katunguka is defiant, disrespectful and isn’t taking Parliament seriously. They demanded to know who Katunguka takes himself to be so as to be away when the whole Minister Ogwang and the Permanent Secretary, who are supposed to be his bosses, are present.
Ogwang and PS Kedrace Turyagyenda were incited and asked to reveal if they weren’t feeling insulted having to be around for a meeting which Katunguka, who is supposed to be their protege, doesn’t consider to be that important.
The MPs said time had come for them to teach Katunguka a lesaon he will never forget. They declared him a defiant Vice Chancellor who will soon realize the consequences which result from messing up with government money and refusing to positively respond when when invited to come and interface with such an important Committee of Parliament.
The MPs said this is a clear cause of financial loss to the GoU whose cash was squandered paying for government-sponsored students for an academic program which isn’t NCHE-accredited and therefore not recognizable anywhere.
As Peter Ogwang pleaded for lenience, some of the MPs proposed escalation and demanded that an arrest warrant be issued so that Katunguka is compelled to be dragged before the Committee through the coercive means of the Police.
Katunguka was also castigated for defying the NCHE by refusing to reply to their letter asking him to explain what exactly happened regarding the unaccredited courses.
The MPs said that this is clear proof of the extent to which the thick-skinned Kyambogo CEO is determined to go on defying everyone while taking himself to be the most powerful giant in Uganda’s higher education universe.
Ogwang and Kedrace said there isn’t much they can do as a Ministry apart from leaving the whole thing of fake unaccredited courses to be comprehensively investigated by the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE). Ogwang said it’s possible there could be many more unaccredited academic programs, a matter which only NCHE can exhaustively inquire into.
This prompted MPs like Gen Henry Matsiko, who represents UPDF in Parliament, to ask Ogwang not to have much hope in NCHE which they said is itself as incompetent as the Kyambogo University itself, if not worse. Matsiko said that the leadership of NCHE doesn’t seem to have the stamina to effectively reprimand a giant like Prof Elly Katunguka.
He wondered why Katunguka can defy their letter for all this time without them (NCHE) doing anything about it. Matsiko also wondered why the NCHE sat on the aggrieved students’ complaint for a whole four months before communicating to Kyambogo while demanding for an explanation from the Vice Chancellor.
Some of the MPs demanded for broader inquiry into academic institutions like Mengo-based Ernest Cook Ultra Sound and Research Institute/University, the authenticity of whose qualifications is equally being complained about in a separate aggrieved students’ petition before the Committee. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
