The executive director of the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI), Dr Livingstone Sewanyana has commended Uganda Christian University (UCU) for introducing two new programmes in the humanities.
Speaking during the launch of the programmes at UCU on May 5, Dr Sewanyana said, “there has been this school of thought in the country that arts do not matter. I want to say today that I do not agree!”.
We should emphasize the importance of arts. I think we need to have a holistic approach to development, like the countries we tend to admire like Malaysia have done,” Sewanyana added.
The new programmes, the Bachelor of Human Rights, Peace and Humanitarian Interventions (BOHPHI), and Bachelor of Organization and Development Management (BODM), are run under the university’s department of Development Studies, in the faculty of Social Sciences.
BOHPHI is meant to help the learners appreciate the challenges of human rights violations, introduce them to the issues of promotion and protection of human rights, peaceful coexistence, and the aftermath of war and instability. BODM is to introduce the learners to how organizations are initiated, built, function, and equip learners with skills in designing, implementing, and managing development initiatives.
Explaining the new programmes, the university’s head of Development Studies, Rev Canon Dr Uzzial Kiriaghe Matte, said this is part of the ongoing curriculum review, and confirmed that these programmes have already been approved and accredited by the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE).
“The department has been undergoing a [review] to strengthen our curriculum since 2014,” Dr Matte said.
“The aim is to tailor our training programmes more closely to the needs of society and offer more appreciable and usable skills to our graduates. We believe that the new courses will add to the range of options for our applicants.”
Dr Matte also announced that the department is set to include more elements of entrepreneurship in the existing Bachelor of Development Studies course.
Consequently, the programme will be renamed the Bachelor of Development and Social Entrepreneurship. Together with the Masters in Development, Monitoring and Evaluation, these two programmes are awaiting the approval of the NCHE before being rolled out.
Sewanyana commended UCU on the quality of her graduates.
“I applaud UCU for producing the best employees in the country. I employ over 200 people but I want to tell you that your products are among the finest, and I want to commend you for that,” he said.