Makerere University started in 1922 as a humble technical school
enrolling 14 day students of Carpentry, Building and Mechanics. Nine
decades later, the University has made giant strides-enrolling over
35,000 students in over 145 study programmes hosted by nine colleges
spread across various campuses. As one of the first higher education
institutions in East and Central Africa, the university has had to
contend with a multiplicity of issues, including relevance, curricula
reform, community engagement and graduate employability; access, equity,
massification and quality assurance; national politics, regulation,
institutional autonomy and academic freedom; funding and financial
management; student politics and activism; staff unionisation,
management and brain drain; physical resources expansion, utilisation
and maintenance; liberalisation, privatisation, commercialisation and
internationalisation; Information and Communication Technology (ICT);
and institutional leadership and integrity. Today, the University stands
out proudly as a hallmark of innovation and excellence in teaching,
research and community engagement, notwithstanding the challenges it has
experienced over the years. As it celebrates 90 years, the higher
education scholarly and policy fraternity take the opportunity to honour
and continue the University's tradition of scholarship and innovation --
through contributing ideas for dealing with some of the challenges that
the University and similar institutions are contending with. Although
studies of Makerere University have been included, it must be understood
that this book is not necessarily about the University. Additional
studies have been drawn from Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi,
Nigeria, Tanzania and other institutions in Uganda.
