General
Mak to host Higher Education Resource Services-East Africa
Makerere University is set to host the coveted Higher Education Resource Services, East Africa (HERS-EA); which brings together women in institutions of higher learning in the region to sharpen their leadership skills. HERS-EA was launched on 5th August 2014 during a two day conference at Imperial Royale Hotel, which drew over 150 participants from universities in the East African Countries of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda and Ethiopia (Central Africa). The Guest of honour, Dr. Raymonda Burgman, Director HERS Institutes USA, challenged HERS-EA to go beyond the equilibrium. “Well behaved women rarely change anything. Go out and change the world,” she emphasized. Mrs. Elizabeth Gabona, Commissioner for Higher Education in Uganda’s Ministry of Education and Sports welcomed the HERS-EA initiative and urged the brains behind it to make sure they have sustainable impact.
HERS is a non-profit educational organization based in the USA. It provides leadership and management training for women in Higher Education Institutions. HERS has instituted a programme of developing partner organisations in order to share and expand the HERS curriculum and associated programs in leadership and management development of women; thus the need for HERS-EA as a sister organization of HERS-USA and HERS-South Africa. HERS-EA’s volunteer Secretariat is currently hosted at the Africa Institute for Strategic Services and Development (AFRISA) in Makerere University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, Animal Resources and Biosecurity (CoVAB). On 3rd Oct. 2013, Makerere University signed a memorandum of understanding to host HERS-EA until it is ready to operate on its own.
According to the Chair HERS-EA Dr. Margaret L. Khaitsa, the HERS-EA model will empower women to scale the height. “Many women are qualified but lack confidence and a support system to take them forward. HERS-EA will provide the network and also create an enabling and safe environment for women to share similar challenges and encourage one another,” she explained.
The Chair of the HERS-EA Conference Organizing Committee, Prof. Florence Wakoko-Studstill, explained that HERS was born out of the realization that women were occupying important positions but there was a substantial lack of women serving as decision makers. HERS-EA targets women in Higher Education Institutions at different career development levels who are thinking of leadership or who are already in leadership to be more efficient and reach the desired levels.
“Our objective is to provide an enabling environment for women in higher education to reach out to the ordinary women in rural communities through mentoring, training, research and transformative activities like best practices in food production and community health. The skills acquired will help them aspire for positions of leadership wherever they will be,” said Prof. Wakoko-Studstill.
Operationalizing HERS-EA
A Board of Directors comprised of representatives from the East African countries, with relevant skills to ensure that they efficiently run the organization and meet the standards for good governance will be formed with its Secretariat in Uganda. The interactive conference agreed that this Board will develop a governance structure for the organization, handle policy issues and will work closely with sub-committees that will specialize in resource mobilization and strategic development.
“We want to train women at least once annually. We will keep a network of all alumni and provide electronic information and also invite them to participate as experts and trainers,” explained Dr. Khaitsa. She hopes that if the Ministries of Education in the member countries and the IUCEA own HERS-EA, which will help address the sustainability question.
A curriculum will be developed, tailor made for the unique needs of women in Higher Education Institutions in East Africa, and a call consequently put out for applications. Dr. Mutasimbwa from IUCEA shared key insights on how gender was mainstreamed in IUCEA, and stressed the need for gender content in academic programmes across the board, and addressing gender imbalance within the academic hierarchy as key points for HERS-EA to consider in structuring a curriculum. IUCEA has already developed broad guidelines for a gender curriculum in East Africa.
Partnering and Funding HERS-EA
To achieve her objective, HERS-EA is looking at partnering with Government, the donor community, and the public and private sectors.
The Principal Education Officer in the Ministry of East African Community Affairs, Amutenda Salvatore Tumwine, pledged the Ministry’s support towards HERS-EA. “We will give you all the necessary support. But as you make your structures, make sure they are big, visible and convincing enough to be categorized under the Education sector as opposed to being under a civil society organization. By doing this, you will be better heard,” he advised. “Please utilize the Ministry of East African Community Affairs and the Inter University Council of East Africa, IUCEA, in propelling HERS- EA,” he added.
Catherine Kanabahita, Director of the Gender Mainstreaming Directorate Makerere University stressed that the Directorate will offer support to HERS-EA. “We want to give technical expertise in writing award winning proposals to raise resources. We also believe in publicity and networks, so we look forward to helping out in this area too,” she said. She presented the participants with a copy of a famous book by the late former President of Tanzania H.E Julius Nyerere titled, ‘Women’s Freedom: Women are Eagles, Not Chickens,’ for personal motivation.
The Principal of CoVAB, Prof. David Kabasa challenged HERS-EA to use the AFRISA model in empowering women. “The discussion on gender should incorporate a discussion on value addition to local products. Inclusiveness in the economic development of Africa must be cognizant of the value chain. The ideological disorientation of getting employed must be addressed. Production should not be looked at as inferior,” he argued.
The President of Africa America Higher Education Partnerships, AAHEP, Dr. Pius Kamau encouraged HERS-EA to be open to diverse partnerships. “We need to create huge partnerships to support one another. Africa has big programmes and different groups think they have the solution but this is not true. All of us should contribute towards making Africa better. I believe women have a much bigger role to play, especially women of science. It is my hope that if we continue doing this, we will create women who are Presidents or key leaders to advance Africa,” he asserted.
Over 5,000 women have been trained by HERS-USA and another 1,000 trained by HERS-SA including the former Deputy Vice Chancellor Academic Affairs of Makerere University Prof. Lillian Tibatemwa-Ekirikubinza, and Dr. Consolata Kabonesa – Dean School of Women and Gender Studies, College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHUSS). Funds will dictate how many will be trained by HERS-EA. The bigger vision is to form HERS-Africa.
By Marion Alina, Public Relations Office
For more information about HERS, see:
www.hers-sa.org.za
http://hersnet.org
By Moses Lutaaya
The Directorate of Graduate Training (DGT) has in collaboration with Centre for Teaching and Learning completed the training of the first cohort of Graduate Supervisors.
Participants were academic staff from two colleges namely, College of Engineering, Art and Design (CEDAT) and the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES).
The three-day training that took place at the Telepresence Centre, Senate Building ended on Friday 20thJune 2025.
In his closing remarks to the participants, the Director of Graduate Training Prof. Julius Kikooma said, “This is the first cohort we are working together with the Center for Teaching and Learning to put together continuous professional development Program so that we are able to enforce the new teaching and learning policy.”
He said that before lecturers are allocated students for supervision, they must first go through this form of formal teaching and learning training to equip them thoroughly with certification required of supervision of graduate students.
“We are coming up with process to ensure that the certificates earned by participants allow you to supervise graduate students. This is the direction of the university and we must ensure that such trainings are concluded and completed successfully by all participants”, Prof. Kikooma.
“We can only have you certified upon completing all the exercises in the training process. This is when you will be eligible to receive the work load for supervision”, He added.
“This training of Supervisors is going to be continuous so that all academic staff in colleges and schools are equipped. This first cohort is going to be our building block to the future trainings in the colleges.”
With such capacity building trainings, Prof. Kikooma said that the university is on the right path to achieving its targets in the new strategic plan of increasing the number of graduate students while progressively reducing the under graduate students.
He further hinted that, “We are in the process of writing a curriculum on this, which will be presented for approval before it is rolled out.”
He echoed all participants to share the knowledge they have acquired adding, “Share all you have learnt, do not keep it. Be open minded, have proper communication channels and the sky will be the limit for you.”
Dr. Robinah N. Kulabako, The Head of Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at CEDAT welcomed the training adding, “This training is very pertinent. I have had the opportunity to supervise Masters and PhD students for over 15 years and I must say that the need to be subjected to this training cannot be over emphasized because there is need to learn, unlearn and relearn many aspects involved in the supervision process.”
She added, “We are moving towards knowledge-based supervision rather than experience-based supervision. This means we must be informed and equipped to be able to advise, guide and mentor to be able to lead a successful supervision journey for both supervisor and supervisee.”
Dr. Andrew Gilbert Were – a lecturer at CEDAT and a participant said, “It is important that all supervisors of graduate students receive this certification from Makerere University through a systematic training process that enables them to attain diverse skills to facilitate learning of graduate students from diverse cultures and with unique set of circumstances.”
“This training is long overdue. In fact, it was an oversight that we could be allowed to supervise students without undergoing supervisors’ training.”
Dr. Dorothy Ssebowa, The Director Centre for Teaching and Learning support- CEES said, “The training this time round has had a mix of early career professionals including Lecturers, Supervisors and Professors share experiences. We have learnt a lot more from experienced supervisors who have shared practices on how they have done supervision over the years.”
“The knowledge and experience-based approaches have made this collaboration very active, interactive and learner centered which has resulted into a collaborative learning from the interdisciplinarity of staff from CEDAT and CAES. The issue now is to continue with professional development across all levels.” She added.
The Makerere University Directorate of Graduate Training (DGT) in collaboration with the Centre for Teaching and Learning completed the training of the first cohort of Graduate Supervisors. This activity was supported by the iCARTA – Institutionalization of Advanced Research Training in Africa, a NORHED II Project at Makerere University.
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