On March 17, the Kyambogo University council held a special meeting where PROF ELI KATUNGUKA-RWAKISHAYA was unveiled as the substantive vice chancellor for the next five years.
He becomes the third substantive vice chancellor to lead the 13-year-old institution. Prof Katunguka, who has been officially serving as the deputy vice chancellor in charge of Academics, talked to Yudaya Nangonzi about his plans for the university.
Congratulations on your appointment!
Thank you so much.
What is top on your list of priorities?
My agenda is big. The three years I have been at Kyambogo University as an acting vice chancellor [have been] a training period. I have learnt to understand the intricacies of the university which are unique and not like [at] any other institution.
I have come to know the people who move the university like top management, priorities of teaching and non-teaching staff and students, among others. I can confidently say that I now understand Kyambogo University and the challenges that lie ahead. I will put together a mechanism on how to address them.
What do you think is expected of you in the five years?
You know, running a university is not a one-man job. I have a management team, deans of faculties, and heads of departments, among others. My role as a vice chancellor is to coordinate the efforts of all these people.
What I will do first is to have a meeting of a day or two of all top managers and student leaders such that we can chart a way forward. We have a strategic plan that will guide us on what to do. Each unit is going to develop a work plan in addressing the strategic plan.
We must address issues [concerning] students, quality, admissions and all issues concerning teaching and learning including research which has been one of our weak points due to limited funds. I have a whole menu of things to do to improve Kyambogo.
Share with us some of the university’s technical teething problems and how you plan to address them.
What comes to light immediately are issues of underfunding, human resource gaps, and shortage of both physical infrastructure and ICT. When the university was set up in 2003, the student population was about 5,000 but we now have about 23,000 students using the same facilities.
You can now see the push and breakdown in the physical infrastructure the university has been going through over the years. So, the lack of appropriate infrastructure coupled with sanitation has been a big problem and one of the causes of frequent strikes.
We are trying to address this challenge with the ongoing ADB construction project and the university’s central lecture block will provide great relief to the sanitation problem. We have insisted that every building must have sufficient sanitation facilities for students and staff.
Over time, we have realised more ICT usage at the university. How are you going to ensure the continuation of initiatives?
For a long time, our operations have been manual which are liable to abuse by wrong characters. This is where we had situations when some students would pay their tuition to some members of staff, who later collude with the bank to defraud the university.
We have intensified ICT use in almost all our activities because it is the way to go. We now have a financial management system which is linked to the banks and has saved the university a lot of money. The e-systems are progressing well. As I talk now, many universities are coming to benchmark on our systems.
Makerere University visitation committee looked at our financial management system and appreciated it as well as recommending it to other institutions. On April 5, Makerere University staff will be visiting us to see how our systems work.
Under my term, we are also looking at installing CCTV cameras at the university premises because we suffer many thefts, vandalism and a few attempts of rape.
We shall also have an IT-based entry and exit system for vehicles into the university, as a way of maintaining our roads and security at campus. Plans for commercialising our systems are also underway, at least in four months, to ensure that the university earns some revenue from them, and the people who develop the systems. We shall continue to develop more modules under the e-kampus system because management is very positive about ICT.
What do you consider to be your main achievement in the position of acting VC?
My main achievement is the area of institutional development mainly focusing on policy. We now have a human resource manual that shows how [staff are] recruited and managed, a financial management manual, ICT policy, quality assurance policy, research and innovations policy and the intellectual property management policy.
Currently, we are developing a policy on running short courses and public-private partnerships. All these policies have been done in a very short time and approved by council. Such policies have caused a lot of stability at the university because people know how they will be recruited, promoted and struck off the payroll.
We have a strong appointments board which has introduced examination tests using the policies. In the past, people have been working for say three years and asking for promotions yet they have done nothing and not improved their skills. The systems have been streamlined and I think it is going to bring a lot of stability in the university.
Are you saying all the three years have not been affected by major strikes?
Yes. The university has been stable apart from the 2016 industrial action by non-teaching staff of all public universities when government did not pay their arrears last year.
We have had no major incidents largely because we have been working with staff associations, student leaders and getting to know what is happening at the university before it explodes into a conflict situation.
By end of 2016, the university was undertaking massive construction under the Support to the Higher Education Science and Technology (HEST) project. What is the progress on this front?
The HEST project is going to be one of the best things that happened to this university. We have about six blocks, a virtual library and a number of engineering workshops to improve the physical infrastructure. We have the central lecture block with a number of lecture theatres moving on well and entirely funded by the university.
The project has also renovated many laboratories used by students. We have had staff enroll for PhDs and masters, best science students also got scholarships for undergraduate programmes also under the project. Another unique component of capacity building in non-teaching staff has also been achieved as people have been trained and we now have a competent workforce.
How are you planning to improve the university’s niche areas?
Our strong areas at the moment are engineering, science, special-needs education, business studies and entrepreneurship, and vocational studies with a strong component of art. We now need to give these areas more human resource because we still have a deficiency in the capacity of engineering.
Over the years, the staff there has not been keen on upgrading, many are retiring and leaving. Engineering will soon be well with construction of labs but we need more external professors to help us in the training of our students. As long as we sit down as a group and define our priorities, we shall achieve a lot.
Talk to us about how you intend to make Kyambogo University internationally competitive in research and knowledge transfer.
Kyambogo now has more than 120 PhDs on our staff in about five years and many are returning back. With this staff, we have [developed] a number of PhD and masters programmes.
We are going to continue training our staff in research management capacity which is still lacking in form of writing good proposals to compete for funds. There are also international partners that come to work with us in ECD, teacher education and secondary education.
Right now, we have 24 Norwegian primary teachers that are teaching in Kyambogo PS, Kyambogo SS and other schools in Banda on an exchange programme. Next year, we expect about 60 teachers as we also send our staff to their countries. We shall build a strong international office as a way of improving our partnerships.
Can we hope to see the end of strikes and general strife at Kyambogo over the next five years?
You cannot guarantee that. People’s demands keep changing and control of a public university is a duty of many players, with government playing a lead role.
Not everybody will agree with me but how I will handle such people will determine the future of the university. My administration is going to be available for any emerging issues affecting staff and students. All students, staff and security must communicate freely with me. I
’m here for everyone to keep calm at the university. There is no reason why people should grumble because I have told department heads to always communicate efficiently to their colleagues in order not to provide fertile grounds for rumors that lead to strikes.
nangonzi@observer.ug