Ask universities whether courses are accredited, NCHE boss advises parents

Okwakol who was speaking to this reporter in a telephone interview said both parents and prospective students must get guarantees from the universities on when they plan to resubmit academic programmes for accreditation if they are not yet accredited.

She said for students who already enrolled on academic programmes that have been classified as expired should worry not as their academic awards will be recognised in the job market.

According to NCHE, a programme is declared expired after exceeding the period in which it must have undergone review.

Statistics obtained from the NHCE indicate that about 1,470 academic programmes in institutions of higher learning have expired.

According to NCHE, affected universities and tertiary institutes are both public and private, but the most affected are the biggest.

Both graduate and undergraduate academic programmes are affected with some having expired as far as a decade ago.

Makerere University together with her sister university, Makerere University Business School, are the most affected as both of them have a combined total of more than 100 academic programmes that have expired.

The Makerere University Vice Chancellor, Prof. Barnabus Nawangwe, in a memo to all university staff, said there had been laxity partly on their side and that of NCHE due to delays in the review of some programmes by departments, schools, and colleges, and occasionally at the Senate level for re-accreditation as required by law.

“While on the side of the NCHE, there have been delays in processing programmes for accreditation and also delays in updating their website,” he said.

The Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions, Quality Assurance Regulations 2008 requires that all academic programmes be reviewed every after five years.

The regulations are meant to ensure the appropriateness, relevancy and adequacy of programmes and courses of study as well as qualifications of staff and quality of students at institutions of higher learning