General
Pharmacy has a new home in Makerere
The proposed new building for the School of Pharmacy, College of Health Sciences was yesterday 7th January 2010 officially handed over by the contractor M/S Arab Contractors at a ceremony presided over by the Vice-Chancellor Prof. Venansius Baryamureeba.
The proposed new building for the School of Pharmacy, College of Health Sciences was yesterday 7th January 2010 officially handed over by the contractor M/S Arab Contractors at a ceremony presided over by the Vice-Chancellor Prof. Venansius Baryamureeba.
An inspection of the building was led by Project Manager from M/S COWI Uganda Eng. Peter Lohmann Otteskov, which saw the delegation tour the new facility complete with access ramps for people with disabilities, a 200-seater lecture theatre, laboratories, lecture rooms, staff offices, an indoor canteen and a high pressure hazard shower area, in the event of accidental chemical spills onto end-users.
The delegation then proceeded to the lecture theatre, where the Lead Consultant Eng. Otteskov thanked both parties from Makerere and the Contractors for their efforts, which culminated in the completion of the 4-year project.
Eng. Arfat Abdel Wahed, General Manager, M/S Arab Contractors Uganda on behalf of his company expressed his pleasure in handing over yet another building in Makerere University to its end-users. He then pledged the Contractor’s commitment to provide technical support and training to the users of the facility especially members of the Estates and Works Department, who will be in charge of the maintenance of the facility. He finally thanked the Management of Makerere University for awarding his company the contract and guaranteed their availability in future construction projects at the university.
Representing the Principal, College of Health Sciences, The Dean, School of Medicine Dr. Stephen Kijjambu, thanked the Architects, Contractors and Consultants for a job well done. He appreciated the loads of new space provided by the building, especially provisions for the persons with disabilities, which showed Makerere’s commitment to cater all categories of future students. He appreciated the timely completion of the building, which will enable the University to train more students so as to improve on the ratio of Pharmacists to the population. He paid tribute to the Pharmacists, who regularly and consistently gave back to their Department and hoped that with the new building, this lead to the eventual launching of a School of Pharmacy.
In his remarks, the University Secretary Mr. Kahundha Muhwezi thanked the team from the College of Health Sciences who diligently worked with the contractor throughout the project. He thanked the DANIDA for the great honor accorded to Makerere through the College of Health Science in helping reduce the disease burden by facilitating the training of more Pharmacists to meet the National demand for these critical professionals. He hoped that the completion of such projects would foster Inter-University collaboration between Danish and Ugandan universities, especially regarding the student exchange programmes.
On behalf of Makerere University, the Vice-Chancellor Prof. Baryamureeba expressed his heartfelt appreciation to DANIDA for the grant of Danish Kroner (DKK) 15million approx. $2.5million (UGX 5billion) to establish a new School of Pharmacy under the College of Health Sciences. He admitted that through increased enrolment, Makerere should be able to train more Pharmacists so as to improve on the current unfavorable ratio of Pharmacists per population of 1:100,000.
He then expressed his gratitude to the Royal Danish Government, The Royal Danish Embassy in Uganda and the Danish people for their continued support to the Country and to Makerere University in particular. Furthermore, he prayed that such collaborations would extend to other sectors of Medicine so as to yield more facilities and output other Medical professionals, who also have an equally appalling ratio per population.
Eng. Arfat then officially handed over the keys to the Vice-Chancellor, who then handed over to Mr. Muhwezi the University Secretary. The University Secretary then handed over to Mr. Masanso, Acting Manager, Estates and Works Department, who proceeded to hand over to the Representative of the Principal and Head, School of Medicine Dr. Kijjambu, who finally handed over to Prof. Richard Odoi Adome, Dean, School of Health Sciences, College of Health Science.
In concluding remarks, Prof. Adome thanked DANIDA ; represented by Mr. Frans Bosman, Pharmaceutical Sector Advisor and Mr. Claes Blooms for the timely grant, which fulfilled the urgent need to expand Departmental space of 350 square meters, housing 120 students over the four-year programme. He thanked the Management of the University for helping secure the land, despite its geographical site outside the current College of Health Sciences location in Mulago. He pledged that with the new facility now in place, the Department’s dream of achieving School status had been greatly enhanced.
M/S Arab Contractors has previously carried out construction projects in Makerere, like the recently opened Faculty of Technology Extension building . The newly handed-over facility will host 325 students and 50 members of staff. The grant used to establish the new School of Pharmacy building is part of the Royal Danish Government assistance to Uganda’s Health Sector Support Phase III through DANIDA.
The Senior Program Director, Higher Education and Research in Africa, International Program, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Prof. Omotade Akin Aina on 23rd May 2025 visited Makerere University during his short trip to Kampala. Prof. Aina was received on behalf of the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe by Prof. Tony Oyana, Principal of the College of Computing and Information Sciences (CoCIS).
During his visit, Prof. Aina met with the Project Implementation Committee, representatives from the Consolidating Early Career Academics Programme (CECAP) phase I Fellowship Cohort, and current Fellows of phase II. The meeting discussed the progress of CECAP II, which focuses on fostering academic development and research among early-career academics.
CECAP II is being implemented by Makerere University in collaboration with four other Ugandan public universities, including; Busitema University, Gulu University, Kyambogo University and Mbarara University of Science and Technology. Prof. Mukadasi Buyinza, the Project Principal Investigator was represented at the meeting by the Director of Graduate Training, Prof. Julius Kikooma.
By Moses Lutaaya
The Directorate of Graduate Training at Makerere University has equipped several Senior ranking lecturers with expert knowledge in a Training of Trainers’ workshop on “Philosophy of Methods”.
In his remarks at the opening of a 3-day training workshop at Level4 Conference Hall – Senate Building, the Director of Graduate Training Prof. Julius Kikooma said, “The teaching of Philosophy of Methods gives all participants the fundamentals to extend knowledge to other learners, hence its importance in upholding the Makerere University values.”
Kikooma urged and challenged the participants to also attend and actively participate in the follow up of learners’ training of students, stating that the PhD students need support as the directorate continues to coordinate the curriculum of PhD by-research that was approved by the senate recently.
“To holistically implement the senate approved PhD curriculum, we are coordinating capacity building trainings of all stake holders in a structured approach with the different units of the University. Many more trainings including Training of Trainers in advanced research methods course are on the way.”
He further urged the participants to be intentional in their teaching profession and in whatever they were doing, adding “Apart from focusing on practices as teachers and researchers, we can engage in wider philosophical debates in our research areas so that we are relevant in the society and in the empowerment of PhD research students.”
The participants for the Philosophy of Methods training were from College of Humanities and Social Sciences, College of Education and External Studies, Makerere University Business School among others.
During the same training, Dr. Dickson Kanakulya stressed the need to train senior lecturers in the Philosophy of Methods, saying, “The biggest connection is that societal problems require concrete research to find solutions. Our challenge in Africa is that we employ a short barrow approach to find solutions to problems. This cannot work. We need consistent researchers to solve problems. Lasting solutions to societal issues can only be got through training such as Philosophy of Methods, where researchers come up with new models for societal solutions.”
Dr. Kanakulya said that Makerere University remains the biggest research University in Africa and philosophy of Methods helps to come up with good research tools that produce good research outputs. “Research has shown that the higher the number of PhD researchers in any given country, the higher the levels of development of that country e.g. the USA, China etc., adding that research is not limited to only medicinal or agricultural related issues.”
He said philosophy of methods, encourages philosophical creativity in research, “It is meant to bring out philosophical generation of concepts, theories and ideas. It is meant to encourage students to question the existing philosophical assumptions and status quo in a given field of knowledge such that new philosophical concepts are created.”
For successful rollout of government programs like the National Development Plan 4, Dr. Kanakulya said that Philosophy of Methods training needs to be integrated into such systems. “Philosophy of Methods focuses on ethical thinking aspects. For example, for a better rollout of the Parish Development Model, we need implementers to be ethical.” He added.
Prof. Sulait Tumwiine, the associate Dean of Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research at MUBS said, “This is a discussion where new ideas are shared to guide and gauge applicability in the current knowledge diversity coupled with lots of technological development including Artificial Intelligence and Chat GPT.”
He added, “As professors of Universities, we need to understand how we leverage on what comes up so that it does not take our space, but also appreciate how we can support growth of knowledge. The Philosophy of Methods training is the answer.”
Dr. Jim Spire Ssentongo highlighted that Philosophy uses more of the critical mind than Science. He added that philosophy is more of speculation of the mind.
“Sustainability of philosophy Education encourages us to continue training. Philosophy being the oldest discipline retained special status in the academia as a pinnacle of pursuit of knowledge. All disciplines have major elements of philosophy citing examples in the philosophy of Mathematics and Physics.
Dr. Spire added, “If you do not understand philosophy, you cannot deeply investigate anything because philosophy is the reality of understanding everything. Philosophy is the basis of understanding what knowledge is and how it is arrived at.”
Also participating in the workshop was Prof. Joseph Ntaayi from MUBS, in his remarks he said PhD students need the philosophy of methods training to understand how to best to create knowledge. He added that ontological and epistemological questions that lead to good research design methods can only be answered by this training.
Dr. Robert Kakuru, a Lecturer in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences said that the Philosophy of Methods training is needed by every graduate student as well as supervisors to critically determine the choice of methods to use in academic research. For example, “If one wants to use a questionnaire as an interview approach, one should understand, why that approach and yet without this training, the why cannot be answered.” He added.
The Philosophy of Methods training was organized by Directorate of Graduate Training with funding support from the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA).
-
Education1 week agoAdmission List to Bachelor of Education External (BED) 2025/26 -Private Sponsorship
-
Agriculture & Environment2 weeks agoClimate Resilience and Sustainability Collaborative: 30 Masters, 6 PhD Scholarships 2025/2026
-
General1 week agoMaster’s Scholarship Opportunities: Call For Applications – Faculty Initiated Ideas
-
Research2 weeks agoUganda’s National ID Delivers $1.35 for Every $1 Invested
-
General2 weeks agoDirectorate of Graduate Training Conducts a Training for Trainer of Trainees in Scholarly Writing & Communication Skills