Carnegie Reporter, Vol. 4, No. 1 | Makerere at the Crossroads, page 4

Still Building for the Future
Since 2001, Carnegie Corporation’s scholarship program for undergraduate women has helped to build Makerere’s educational capacity. “An investment in scholarships for women is an investment in the creation of knowledge for Africa,” according to Corporation president Vartan Gregorian. Emphasizing the huge gender gap in the top tier of university positions, he says “supporting and mentoring women undergraduates in significant numbers will help to strengthen African universities—one of the Corporation’s top goals.”

“As more universities begin charging or increasing tuition fees, we believe women will find it even harder to pay for university training than their male counterparts,” Andrea Johnson adds. “Scholarship programs give women a way to participate and give universities experience with student financial aid programs that can help reduce gender inequality.”

Makerere’s female scholarship program gives priority to women from disadvantaged backgrounds and from underserved parts of Uganda. The program’s leaders have been very inventive, Narciso Matos says, creating a model from ideas “not written in any book.” They use T-shirts and newspaper ads in their publicity campaign and they go out into the villages to conduct home visits and interview neighbors to validate applications. “Despite the relatively small numbers, the program has an important elevating effect,” says Matos. “Its reputation throughout the university is very positive and most importantly, it benefits 200 kids every year who, without the scholarship, would be unlikely to make it to college.”

Other Makerere supporters are literally building up the university in a big way. The government of Norway, for example, has underwritten a campus landmark, the Faculty of Computing and Information Technology, which no visitor can miss. This cheerful, modern building rises five-stories high just inside the entrance gate—a brick-and-mortar expression of the university’s intention to lead in information and communications technology (ICT). “All economic development depends on ICT,” says Dr. Venansius Baryamureeba, dean of the Faculty, “and our goal is to be the center of excellence in computing in all of Africa.”

A graduate of Makerere who earned his Ph.D. at the University of Bergen, Norway, Baryamureeba has within a period of three years led the transformation of the Institute of Computer Science from a small unit with one academic program, 30 students and an annual budget of $15,000 to a faculty with 20-plus programs, 280 full- and part-time staff and more than 5,500 students pursuing degrees, with a budget of $5 million a year. Baryamureeba’s vision for ICT goes far beyond the department’s current activities; he sees the field as an engine of economic development with great potential in capacity building.

Baryamureeba, who seems to personify Makerere’s longstanding motto, “We build for the future,” is now spearheading the construction of a second ICT facility, thus far using internally generated funds. Planned to be the continent’s largest computing and ICT training and research center, the new building will house classrooms and lecture theaters, and its six huge computer labs will be equipped for 1000 students each. In addition to allowing for outsourcing, data entry and software development, there will be small scale computer manufacturing and assembling plants. According to Baryamureeba, “this is, basically, an incubation center for ICT development throughout the country.”

Ritah Namisango, Public Relations Assistant

“My love for Makerere began when I was only nine years old,” says the 25-year-old alum. “It was the one university in the country at that time, 1990, and graduation was a national event. The ceremony would be aired on Radio Uganda, so the public was sensitized. They would even make an announcement for people not to use the roads around a graduate’s town when it was time for them to be traveling back home. I got very excited imagining what it would be like to have my name announced to the president, my family and my village.”

Ritah’s ambition was fueled the next year when a girl from her village graduated from Makerere—an uncommon enough event to create a buzz in the neighborhood. Ritah accompanied her grandmother to the ceremony and, finding that she “identified completely” with the graduate, set her sights on Makerere. “I thought if other people have done it then I can. I did a personal assessment and concentrated on my academics.” Ritah worked, and she excelled. When the time came to apply to colleges, although there were now several choices, she checked only one from the list. “My advisor said not to put all my eggs in one basket, but I would not change my mind.”

By the time Ritah was applying, the university had privatized. But she had studied for years with the intention of winning a government sponsorship and this was still her goal. Ritah’s father was dead, and her brother had always paid her school fees, but she didn’t want to burden him any longer. She took the national qualifying examination and waited. “I’ll never forget the fourth of April, 2001, when the results were released. I placed third in my district, and the district placed second in the whole country. I was working at my brother’s business when a call came in from my schoolmaster asking, ‘Do you know where Ritah is?’ He told me to go right over to the New Vision newspaper office because they wanted to interview me!”

Ritah got the full scholarship she had been hoping for as well as a place in her first-choice residence: Mary Stuart Hall. The school’s female student leaders lived in this building, and VIPs who came to campus often spoke in its courtyard. “Something interesting was always happening here,” she says, “and this way I’d never miss out.” Ritah graduated in 2005 with a B.A. in mass communications and began working in the public relations department (where she had interned as an undergraduate) soon after. Now her goal is to leverage her love of Makerere toward improving public perception of the university. “There is a tremendous number of students here, more every year. Unfortunately, there are also many communication gaps,” she says. “There’s no flow among different groups, so one doesn’t know what the other one is doing. Journalists write about inefficiencies, which creates a bad impression. I’d like to change that.”

Makerere’s Women and Gender Studies department has also broken new ground by integrating ICT into the curriculum. The department, a pioneer in sub-Saharan Africa, addresses gender and development issues from a uniquely African perspective. Its aim is to give students an understanding of the role of gender in all areas of life, while encouraging women to advance their academic careers.

In 2002, Carnegie Corporation, along with other donors, provided support for the department’s plan to use technology integration to change women’s perceptions and promote leadership and gender equity. Initially, the department itself lacked ICT equipment and fewer than 10 percent of participants owned their own computers or had received ICT training, according to Dr. Consolata Kabonesa, acting head of women and gender studies. However, there was enthusiasm for the idea and over 90 percent of the staff indicated they would use the educational technology in their courses.

A Cisco networking program was added to the women and gender studies course offerings, signifying that information technology is a field in which women can be successful. As a local venue within the Cisco structure, the department committed to holding gender balanced and all female classes with the aim of increasing the number of women in the information technology workforce. It was “a far from simple process,” and Kabonesa makes clear that “training academics in the use of ICT requires transforming their thinking, their way of looking at technology, and their leadership skills.”

Because the training center is located in the department of women and gender studies, women see the program as made to order for them, while having female instructors provides a role model and builds their confidence. As a result of the program, the women and gender studies department has taken the lead in the use of ICT in classroom instruction and research, in mentoring colleagues and influencing other departments to integrate gender in their curricula.

Another sign of Makerere’s advancement is the state-of-the-art Infectious Diseases Institute, which provides treatment for HIV/AIDS and other diseases while fostering a new generation of African health care leadership. Opened in 2004, it is the only such center in East Africa, providing training, operational research and patient care all under one roof. It fills a major gap in the region’s response to demand for anti-retroviral therapies and trained health care workers to administer them. The two-story, 29,000-square-foot structure can accommodate up to 300 HIV/AIDS patients daily and, according to Professor Nelson K. Sewankambo, dean, Makerere Faculty of Medicine, “is destined to become a major center for training medical professionals in the management of these diseases.”

The Institute came about because of a unique partnership initiated by infectious disease experts from Makerere and their counterparts in the United States and Canada, who in 2001 formed the Academic Alliance for AIDS Care and Prevention in Africa (AAACP). Pfizer Inc. provided support for construction and setting up the program, with additional funding for HIV/AIDS prevention from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Professor Sewankambo, a physician with an international reputation as a leader in the fight against AIDS in Africa, calls the Institute “a significant milestone for the university” and points out that it is the first infrastructure investment at the medical school in 35 years. “The clinic, which includes a world-class laboratory facility, is truly a model for how to treat people with HIV/AIDS,” he says. Sewankambo expects the facility to help Makerere “renew its reputation as a leading educational institute in Africa and worldwide.” In 2005, the Institute was handed over to Makerere to operate independently.

Hundreds of physicians, nurses, pharmacists, laboratory technicians and other health care providers from 22 African countries have been trained, and thousands of patients currently receive care at the Institute. Sustainability will be the Institute’s continuing challenge, especially as the number of patients seeking care has grown far more rapidly than anticipated. Various solutions are being considered, including satellite clinics, to cope with future demand.

These promising projects are not the only ones underway at “new and improved” Makerere. A successful program in the agricultural faculty that enabled extension workers, mostly adult women, to earn bachelor’s degrees in order to meet the government’s newly imposed educational requirements impressed Carnegie Corporation’s Andrea Johnson. Narciso Matos is highly optimistic about Makerere’s library (recipient of a Corporation grant in 2001) now headed by Dr. Maria Masoke. The library, Matos says “has good leadership; they know where they want to go.” Law, social sciences, economics and business faculties are thriving, he notes, because of high enrollments and resulting revenues, which the university’s decentralized structure keeps within the departments. The new director of graduate studies is also headed in the right direction, although “they still have to prove themselves,” he adds.

Makerere’s mass communications unit is revving up its training of the new generation of journalists in Uganda’s growing media sector, according to Ambika Kapur, program associate, Carnegie Corporation Dissemination Program, under the guidance of the department’s recently appointed head, Peter Mwesige, an award-winning journalist and former editor of the Daily Monitor, Uganda’s leading independent newspaper.

Ruth Mukama, head of the gender mainstreaming division, reports with great satisfaction that a sexual harassment prevention policy will take effect beginning with the new school year. “Students in gender mainstreaming were the best spokespersons for pushing this policy through the Senate [the university’s chief academic body],” she says. “Resistance is still great. But these students have been getting leadership training and it really helped.” With this basic protection in place, Mukama’s dream is to see a full-fledged gender policy—one that achieves equity among students and academic staff at every level—in effect at Makerere within the next five years.

Next page: Walking the campus and talking with students makes one aware of Makerere's many pluses—prestigious past, academic excellence, freedom, connections, dedicated teachers, social engagement... and its considerable minuses—bad roads, broken-down buildings, burning garbage and, in the students' words, missing transcripts and fees, fees, fees.

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