Makerere University to reduce admissions by 1,200

Makerere University Vice Chancellor Prof. Barnabus  Nawangwe

Makerere University will reduce the undergraduate admissions this year by 10 per cent to increase its research capacity.

In an interview on Saturday, Prof Barnabas Nawangwe, the vice chancellor, said they are cutting down the undergraduate admissions by 1,200 because they want to raise the number of students on graduate programmes from the current 6,000 to 10,000.

“We are cutting the undergraduate admissions to increase the number of graduate students because they contribute to research,” he said.

Prof Nawangwe said they currently admit around 12,000 students annually.

Last week, Mr Yusuf Kiranda, the acting university secretary, said much as the university previously thought it was generating revenue from the high number of student admissions, they have found out that the current enrolment overstretches university’s resources.
Last week while releasing their findings on research, Prof William Bazeyo, the deputy vice chancellor in charge of finance and administration, said the university had dispatched 99 teams of Ugandan researchers to carry out investigations of different aspects of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic to the country.
He said due to limited resources, they had to leave out 201 applicants who had sent proposals to conduct similar studies.

Prof Nawangwe said they have adequate facilities to cater for students but indicated that they want to increase the number of students studying online.

The development comes at a time when the university appears to be shifting away from producing unskilled and unemployable graduates to producing graduates who are solution-based and can be self-employed.