ministry of education and sports p.o. box 7063, kampala

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• MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SPORTSP.O. BOX 7063,
  KAMPALA 

EXPERIENCES AND BEST PRACTICES IN ACHIEVING
EXCELLENCE IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN HIGHER
EDUCATIONUgandas Case  Presented at the
Achieving Excellence in Higher Education
Workshop, Al-Khawayn University, Ifrane, Republic
of Morocco 2nd 5th November
2009 By Athmani Bilali,Delegate forThe
Republic of UgandaE-mail athmanibilali_at_yahoo.co.
uk
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       1.0 INTRODUCTION The Chief
Guest Fellow delegates All protocols
observed ADMINISTRATIVE MAP OF UGANDA  
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1.1 The Geographical Setting
Uganda is located in East Africa and lies 1200m
above sea level, astride the equator between
latitudes 412 to the North and 129 to the
South and between longitudes 2934 to the East
and 3500 to the East. It is a landlocked
country with a total surface area of 241.039
square kilometers, bordering Kenya in the East,
Tanzania in the South, Rwanda in the Southwest,
Democratic Republic of Congo in the West and
Sudan in the North. Owing to its altitudinal and
location advantages, Uganda enjoys a favourable
climate. The Central, Eastern and Western
regions have two long rainy seasons per year,
while the North has one long and one short rainy
season. The country is well endowed with fertile
soils and the resultant vegetation cover ranges
from tropical rain forest in the south to the
savannah woodlands and semi-arid type in the
north and north-east, respectively.
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1.2 The Demographic Trends
The demographic and human development indices
have been changing between the population census
of 1948 and 2002. Ugandas population increased
nearly five fold from 5m in 1948 to 24.7m in 2002
and now is estimated at 30.7 m. The current high
population growth rate of 3.2 per annum is
largely attributed to a high fertility rate of
about 7 children per woman, a relatively high
birth rate and declining infant mortality and
death rate. The population density has risen from
25 in 1948 to 126 persons per square kilometer in
2002. Approximately 88 of the people live in
rural areas.
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2.0 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SPORTS 

• 2.1 THE VISION OF THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND
  SPORTS ON HIGHER EDUCATION
• The vision of the Ministry on higher education
  is to provide equitable access of quality higher
  education to all qualified Ugandans by 2015.
• 2.2 THE MISSION OF THE MINISTRY ON HIGHER
  EDUCATION
• The Ministry s mission is to provide equitable
  access to quality higher education through study,
  teaching and research, mediated by modern
  technologies and high calibre manpower.
• 2.3 The Ministry of Education and Sports is one
  of the ministries in the Government of the
  Republic of Uganda and Higher Education
  Department is one of the technical units of the
  Ministry.
•  

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The education and sports sector is guided by the
following sectoral strategic objectives
Equitable access, improvement on quality and
relevance at all levels of education and sports.
The relevant Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to
the education and sports sector is to ensure that
by 2015, both boys and girls complete a full
course of primary schooling and that gender
disparities will be eliminated at primary school
and all other levels of education and sports by
2015. The sectoral objectives are consistent with
the Education for All (EFA), goals set in 1990
and re-affirmed in Dakar in 2000, which include
but limited to completion of free and compulsory
primary education, elimination of gender
disparities, and achievement of measurable
learning outcomes, especially in literacy,
numeracy and life skills.
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3.0 EXPERIENCES AND BEST PRACTICES OF
ACHIEVING EXCELLENCE IN SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Ugandas experience and practices in achieving
excellence in science and technology stems from
basic education system, through secondary to
higher education, which includes universities and
other tertiary institutions. 3.1 Basic Education
3.1.1 Primary Education Sub sector Government
policy guidelines present that all basic sciences
are taught at nursery through primary education
level, from primary one to seven. Between primary
one and three classes, science is imbedded in the
themes, and continuous assessment of competences
is carried out based on the thematic curriculum.
Between primary four and seven, science is
taught and assessed through tests and
examinations as a subject. At primary seven,
final examinations are externally administered
and assessed by the Uganda National Examinations
Board, based on the topical curriculum of
science, mathematics, social studies and language.
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• 3.1.2 Secondary Education Sub sector The
  Ministry of Education and Sports made
  science-based subjects non-optional at lower
  secondary level (Senior 1 to 4) in 2006.
• Science and Technology at secondary sub sector
  are non-optional between senior one and four
  classes, providing 100 participation by the
  students.
• They however, become optional at higher
  secondary level, in senior five and six classes,
  where more students take arts/ humanities based
  subjects, while a relatively smaller number take
  science-based subjects. The sciences consist of
  biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics,
  technical drawing, agriculture, food science
  home economics as core subjects.

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• The teaching and learning of science and
  technology based subjects in secondary schools is
  guided by the availability of science and
  technology teachers instructional materials such
  as books, chemicals and reagents and equipment
  such as science apparatus , microscopes and
  computers.
• Challenges Experienced by Secondary Schools
• Over 4000 public and private secondary schools
  offer advanced level secondary education, among
  which slightly over 50 offer science and
  technology based subjects.
• Although over 50 of the schools offer
  science-based subjects, less than 15 of the
  students who transit to senior five class opt for
  science-based subjects.

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Disparity in Laboratory Distribution Among
Secondary Schools More than 50 of secondary
schools do not have functional laboratories some
schools only have stores where they keep
instructional materials and the equipment for
science-based courses.

Disparity in Laboratory Distribution Among
Secondary Schools More than 50 of secondary
schools do not have functional laboratories some
schools only have stores where they keep
instructional materials and the equipment for
science-based courses.
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• (b) Way Forward to the Challenges
• Secondary Science and Mathematics Teachers
  Project (SESEMAT) was designed to re-tool science
  teachers so that there is a change of
  attitude among students towards the learning of
  science and mathematics a change of perception
  among teachers in the teaching of science and
  mathematics, using the available instructional
  materials. The Ministry of Education and Sports
  has designed hands-on and minds-on activities to
  enhance the teaching and learning of science and
  mathematics in secondary schools.
• (ii) The Ministry of Education and Sports of the
  Republic of Uganda has developed a curriculum
  that makes computer science a taught and
  examinable subject at the Uganda Certificate of
  Education level(UCE)-equivalent to Cambridge
  School Certificate.

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(ii) Teacher recruitment is inclined to target
science based teachers. (iii) Government has
also intervened to construct new laboratories and
rehabilitate the existing ones. (iv)
Multi-Purpose Science Rooms Under the World Bank
Project, the Universal Secondary Education (USE)
schools that have over enrolled students , shall
be provided with multi-purpose science rooms to
facilitate the teaching and learning of sciences
at secondary school level and will be provided
with extra infrastructure like class-rooms, to
ensure class-sizes remain adequate, which leads
to effective and efficient teaching.

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• 3.13 Higher Education Sub sector
• Science and technology based courses at higher
  education level, are majorly offered at the
  public universities, notably Makerere and
  Kyambogo Universities in Central Uganda, Mbarara
  University of Science and Technology in Western
  Uganda,Gulu University in Northern Uganda and
  Busitema University in Eastern Uganda.
• Science and technology courses offered at the
  public universities include pure sciences e.g.
  biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, geology
  and environmental science, applied sciences e.g.
  engineering, information and communication
  technology, agriculture, forestry and food
  science.

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• Challenges
• The expansion of access and equity to university
  education is intended to widen opportunities of
  accessing university education to a considerable
  number of the Ugandan community and has so far
  registered an increase in the enrolment number,
  now standing at about 107,728. This expansion
  has enabled the production of a great number of
  graduates in the areas of Humanities, Arts and
  Social Sciences, against limited available
  outlets for employment that require science and
  technology based graduates.
• There is an imbalance between science and
  technology-based programmes vis-à-vis the arts
  and humanities-based-programmes, affecting the
  development of production and manufacturing
  industrial sector.The performance of the
  manufacturing and industrial sector has therefore
  been affected by the production of inadequate
  human resource in the area of science and
  technology.

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ICT- Teaching and Learning Mediated techniques
are still lacking in the Ugandan tertiary
institutions.This has affected the performance of
the higher education in ICT-related
functionalities.
b) Staff Recruitment and Development
Generally, there is a scenario in the Ugandan
university education system that depicts
inadequacy of qualified academic, technical and
managerial personnel for effective and efficient
operationalisation of the university
institutions, thus affecting fast effective and
efficient operations of the universities.
(c) Funding Due to competing priorities within
the education sector, higher education sub-sector
is not adequately funded. This scenario affects
effective and efficient implementation of
programmes intended to improve the performance of
the sub-sector. Non-affordability of higher
education by students intending to study science
and technology based courses on private
sponsorship arrangement, limits equitable access
to higher education in science and technology.
This limits the performance of the universities
in terms of enrolling adequate numbers of
students to study science and technology based
courses.
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4.0 INTERVENTIONS FOR HIGHER EDUCATION

• A worrying imbalance between science and
  technology based courses on the one hand, and
  arts and humanities on the other, has been
  addressed by institution of 53 of places in
  public universities for Government sponsorship to
  be on the courses critical to national
  development, science and technology based courses
  inclusive. The others are applied arts and
  humanities that include law and business related
  courses.
• It has been planned that public universities are
  equipped with critical and functional knowledge
  and skills within the first year. This envisages
  that the proportion of students taking science
  and technology will be raised from the present
  15 of tertiary enrolment and expected to rise
  to at least 30 of tertiary enrolment by the year
  2015.

• Staff development schemes, together with
  attractive the remunerations, have been
  adequately designed and developed for
  implementation after approval by the university
  governing councils. This strategy will address
  the scenario of understaffing in the higher
  education institutions.

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• The government of the Republic of Uganda has
  instituted deliberate efforts to encourage the
  universities to incorporate ICT-component into
  the teaching and learning, as well as managerial
  activities of the universities. Makerere and
  Kyambogo universities are already implementing
  this strategy.
• The Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions
  Act 2001 as amended, and the Budget Act of 2001,
  permit public universities to collect and utilise
  at source, appropriation-in-aid funds to improve
  their funding levels. This strategy has yielded
  fruits as the public universities and other
  tertiary institutions, have developed corporate
  arrangements to supplement government funding.
  Improvement in the funding levels have enabled
  the universities to serve as vehicles that drive
  the country into achieving excellence in science
  and technology.

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5.0 APPRECIATION The Ministry of Education and
Sports of the Republic of Uganda is appreciative
of the various levels of assistance extended to
the Republic of Uganda by the friendly Islamic
Development Bank.   I thank you all for listening
to me.    FOR GOD AND MY COUNTRY