INTRODUCTION

Makerere University (Mak) is due to celebrate a century of existence in 2022. Among the significant highlights of these centenary celebrations, the University plans to publish an easy-to-read and well-documented book that critically reviews its successes in living to the Motto: “We Build for the Future”, since its inception in 1922 as a technical institute. Under this theme, the book will address several sub-themes and issues such as: How Makerere has met the changing East African market needs for skilled labour since 1922 and how, as a premier regional university, it is now positioned to develop research leadership in the region; whether or not Makerere has sustained its research leadership status as a postcolonial university that had influenced other sub-Saharan universities, and how this is reflected in the curricula What are the new courses that have emerged to locate Makerere as a nation-building institution? What ground-breaking researches and knowledge is being produced in the University? What has been the relationship between the University and the states it was built to serve, and how has this affected Makerere‘s performance over the years? Since a university that has come of age is assessed based on its ability to be independent/autonomous, how has Makerere performed? What funding strategies are in place in this regard? What has emerged as Makerere‘s identity: an ivory tower or a service university that offers service to empower the hinterlands? What are Makerere‘s overall influence and image in the region, and what explains this? What would Makerere like to become in the next 100 years? These are some of the broad questions to guide the formulation of thoughts for the chapters from diverse disciplinary perspectives. 

EDITORS:  ABK Kasozi, Josephine Ahikire and Dominica Dipio

BOOK TIMELINE

Submission of abstracts (Max. 500 words): November 1, 2021

Submission of draft chapters (Max 10,000 words): March 30, 2022

Submission of Final Chapters:  June 30, 2022

Book Publication – June to October 2022

Send abstracts to: mak100.bookproject[at]mak.ac.ug

Copy to: josephine.ahikire[at]mak.ac.ug, abkkasozi[at]yahoo.com, ahikirejosephine[at]gmail.com

THE THEMES AND BROAD AREAS OF FOCUS

Section 1: Providing skilled human resources for East African Society

(i)The technical school which opened in 1921

The colonial state established Makerere Technical School to produce low-level technicians. The school taught skills needed by the East African countries of Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, and Zanzibar. Students were taught carpentry, building, general mechanics, and some tailoring. Many of the trainees were absorbed by the E. African states and their markets. The question to answer by writers for this section is: What was the trajectory of the technical school and its offshoots in enhancing the lifestyles of the people of East Africa?

(ii) Makerere College and Kampala Technical College

A formal College was founded in 1922 as “Uganda Technical College”, but in the same year, the College was renamed Makerere College, teaching technical subjects and courses in education and the arts.  The writers on this section should focus on the demands for skilled labour; what Makerere was called upon to deliver, and whether Makerere truly built the future of the parties involved. In 1928, vocational courses were separated from the College and were transferred to “Kampala Technical College”. What became of the latter College, and were vocational courses wholly divorced from the university system?

(iii) Makerere graduates to university status, 1949

The 1945 Judge Asquith’s Report on higher education gave the blueprint for establishing institutions of higher learning in British African colonies to provide high-level African civil servants such as doctors, engineers, agriculturalists, a few lawyers, and production of knowledge through research to the colonial states. In 1949, the institution became Makerere College, the University of East Africa, giving certificates of the University of London. When Makerere became a university, it assumed, like other universities, multiple functions. These functions included the production of knowledge for development, skilled and thinking individuals who would use known wisdom to create better knowledge and improve themselves and their societies. The University College was expected to be the leading teaching and innovation centre in East Africa. The areas to review in this section are the expectations of the colonial officers and their African collaborators who worked hard to establish the University. Did the institution fulfil those expectations? Did their aims go beyond human resource production? How did the production of graduates by Makerere change East African society in the eleven years before independence? The writers should assess the colonial workforce needs from 1935 to 1960, find out what Makerere was called upon to produce and whether it achieved those targets.

(iv) Skills needed for independent East Africa

In the period 1950 to 1963, Makerere remained the only University College for East Africa. There was an increased demand for educated graduates in almost all disciplines, including science and humanities-based ones. Makerere was called upon to produce graduates to increase educated Africans in the civil service and the private sector.

The education Makerere was giving was ideology-free, which Kenya and Uganda did not object to. But Tanzania felt that the instruction given must enhance patriotism and service to communities. Chapters dealing with topics in this section must review the needs of the three East African states in the period 1950 to 1965 and assess the place of Makerere therein.

(v) Skills needed for the digital age

From around 1980 through the current period, the digital age has transformed how goods and services are produced and delivered. It is only those societies that use technology that are likely to sustain a reasonable standard of living. To what extent has Makerere transformed its activities to exploit the digital age for itself and the society it serves.

Section II: Production of knowledge through research and innovation

When Makerere became a university, it was expected to produce and expand knowledge by providing researchers with facilities for creating, disseminating, storing information and data for use by society and institutions of higher learning. Although not emphasized as its primary task, the Asquith Report identified research as one of the functions of the various university colleges the British Empire was to establish in Africa. Has Makerere contributed to knowledge, the development and improvement of the thinking capacity of its target areas? Writers on this section have several sub-themes and therefore chapters to think about, including:

• Writers, poets, and actors

In the period 1950 to 1970, Makerere-based writers contributed to the dissemination of knowledge. These writers included Ngugi was Thiong’o, Okot p’Btek, Peter Nazareth, Ali Mazrui, Audrey Richards, Paul Theroux, V.S. Naipaul, Mahmood Mamdani, Samwiri Karugire, Mathia M. Kiwanuka, Phares Mutibwa and others. A chapter to assess the contribution to knowledge by Makerere staff and students in this period would say a lot about how the university contributed to building an informed society in East Africa.

• Visual Artists

Since 1940, the Margaret Trowell School of Fine has produced artists whose work has contributed to the shaping of Makerere University’s social consciousness.  It has documented Makerere’s challenges and successes over the years. The art works, both in storage in the Makerere Art Gallery and those in private and public spaces, reveal Makerere as an enduring institution which has used every opportunity to push its research agenda.  Artists such as Gregory Maloba, Sam Ntiro, Elimo Njau, Francis Nnaggenda and Kefa Ssempangi have, through their work, provided a variety of perspectives on Makerere’s history. A narrative of Makerere University’s journey of ten decades through the lens of Makerere Artists is proposed.

• Knowledge production

There was a lot of knowledge produced at the East African Institute of Social Research (now MISR), the Medical School and the Faculty of Agriculture from 1950 to 1970. A survey of what was achieved in research at Makerere in that period would add to our knowledge of the institution’s contribution to knowledge in East Africa.

• Management of research and post-graduate production

Management of research and production of high-level person power such as PhD holders is a topic that a book on the achievements of Makerere should highlight. To what extent has Makerere contributed to developing high-level human resources and creating the next generation of knowledge producers?

Section III: Makerere’s contribution to democratic governance and the building of social institutions in East Africa

Universities contribute to democratic governance and the building of social and political institutions by equipping their graduates with the intellectual skills to understand and analyze social and political issues before taking appropriate positions. Makerere has supplied East Africa with political leaders, including presidents, prime ministers, ministers, judges and journalists. Writers of chapters in this section might organize these achievements by roles such as:

1. Political leaders
2. Religious leaders
3. Institutional developers
4. Famous politicians and political thinkers

Section IV: Makerere’s contribution to the economic development of East Africa

Universities support economic growth by the general training of the labour force and providing knowledge linked to a country’s innovation system. This is more so now when most critical development is knowledge-based; universities should be the reservoirs of intellectuals and experts. To what extent has Makerere supplied the market with skills and knowledge to move East African economies forward? Writers for this section need to have a thorough understanding of East African economies and the extent to which the university has influenced their performances.

Section V: Makerere and Curriculum Development in East Africa

Universities strengthen lower levels of education by training the needed teaching personnel and triggering relevant curriculum changes at the lower levels of education. Lower-level syllabuses are structured to fit into the admission requirements of universities. The question to ask is: To what extent has Makerere influenced what is taught at the lower levels of education? Should Makerere take credit or blame for the slow curriculum development and the failure of Africanising what is taught in East African schools and universities?

Section VI: Challenges

There are several challenges to Makerere’s ability to build the future for a society that contributors must investigate if readers are to participate in appreciating the successes or failures of Makerere University.

• Governance of the University

The governance of a university is key to the delivery of good higher education. Like other universities, Makerere has passed through several hiccups in its desire to provide higher education.

Though it is difficult to govern institutions differently — or better – than the way society is managed, we expect higher education institutions to handle themselves well, to be autonomous but at the same time accountable to the public in the way they manage their financial and academic processes. Higher education institutions, particularly universities, must accept the Government as the final protector of the public good in higher education to achieve autonomy and accountability. In Uganda the oversight roles of the Auditor General for financial matters and the National Council for Higher Education must be accepted. At the same time, governments must understand that universities perform best when they are institutionally free and protected from state micromanagement. The writers in this section must survey the history of how the University has been governed and how it has passed through the East African region’s various political storms since 1922.

• The university and the Uganda state

The history of the current university in Uganda is tied to, and reflects, the rocky history of the Uganda state since the 1945 anti-colonial riots. The Ugandan university has prospered and declined amidst the fortunes of the Uganda state. Like other African countries, university education was introduced in Uganda to create an intelligent collaborating elite to manage the colonial state. After independence, the post-colonial leaders were determined to build a collaborating middle class and avoid the emergence of a hostile educated elite. A well-researched chapter on the university’s relations with the state between 1922 and 2022 would be an excellent monument to reveal how Makerere survived and built a society in that period.

• Funding of the University, 1922-2022

The funding of Makerere is key to understanding almost all the challenges the university has faced in the past and is meeting now. Writers for this section should study the model the colonial state used in funding Makerere; its subsequent alteration by the 1970 Act to a state-driven one; the failure of the state to finance the institution fully; the throwing of the university to the waves of the market in the 1980s; the subsequent shortage of funds and the impact of the Structural Adjustment “Conditionalities” on Makerere.[1] Although the state allowed the market to operate in the financing of Makerere, the state retained its power to control the institution’s financial policy. Currently, most public universities have accumulated deficits. After such a review, it is necessary to point out what went right or wrong and what course the institution should take in financing all its activities.

• Staff and Student strikes

Writers on this section should review staff and student strikes at Makerere, beginning with the 1928 and 1952 food strikes to the many activists from the 1980s when the university implemented neoliberal policies to the current period.[2] The core causes of these strikes are funding, relations with external forces and mismanagement. To write Makerere’s contribution to society, we must study its problems, shortcoming and the constraints under which it operates.

• The type of University Makerere has been and should be in the next century

Carol Sucherman poses an interesting question, which Mahmood Mamdani grappled with at the University of Cape Town.[3] Has Makerere been a foreign (European) university in Africa or an African university? In his many speeches in Parliament, Abu Mayanja emphasized the Africanisation of the curriculum as a basis of decolonizing the minds of Ugandan youths.[4] It seems that this is an area where Makerere has not entirely constructed ideas for Africanising the University. But we cannot blame the institution for this failure. The current African university was an outgrowth of the European university. Universities as chartered communities of learners, teachers and knowledge producers developed over time from the Islamic through the medieval and enlightenment periods. Some of the earliest centres of learning included Athens ((500-300 BC), Alexandria (288 BC- 650 AD), Qarawiyyin (859 -), Al-Azhar 970-) and Timbuktu (C12^th – C18th). Many of these learning centres became corporate entities when rulers gave them charters or guarantees of freedom to teach and search for knowledge unhindered. The original aim of many universities founded in Europe before 1800 was to produce and defend the values and social legitimation of the founders of a given institution. The modern western university evolved out of religious centres of learning, mainly Christian Cathedral schools for the clergy. These included Bologna (1088), Salamanca (1134), Paris (1150), Oxford (1167), Cambridge (1209) and others. Later, other disciplines were added to theology for study as scholars realized that the development of the mind involved the mastery of multiple domains (Newman,1907). Al-Azhar, founded earlier in 970AD in Egypt, stuck to only religious teaching and research until the C19th.

In Uganda and many post-colonial states, higher education imitated and followed western traditions. Almost all university studies delivered at Makerere followed and were certified by a western institution, the University of London, whose certificates Makerere graduates received until 1963. The administration of the university and its curriculum followed and was never allowed to undermine the colonial administration, and any dissenting lecturers (like Mary Parker, who criticized the colonial policies of Kenya in her lectures) were not permitted to teach. With independence, it was expected that Makerere would develop a robust institutional personality, chart its course by defining what type of university it wished to be and serve society accordingly.

Umar Kakumba (PhD)
DEPUTY VICE CHANCELLOR (ACADEMIC AFFAIRS)/
CHAIRPERSON, MAK@100 PROGRAMME SUB-COMMITTEE

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[1] Mamdani, Mahmood (2007).  Scholars in the Marketplace:  The Dilemmas of Neo-Liberal Reform at Makerere University, 1989-2005.  Kampala:  Fountain Publishers.

[2] Byaruhanga, Fredrick Karuhanga (2006). Student Power in Africa’s Education: A Case Study of Makerere University. New York: Routledge, Tailor and Francis Group

[3] Sicherman, Carol (2005). Becoming an African University: Makerere 1922-2000. Kampala: Fountain Publishers

[4] Abu K. Mayanja: Several speeches in Parliament e.g Hansard: “Motion: 1965/66 – Estimates of Expenditure”, 6^th July 1965, p. 2802; Hansard: “Motion – Address in Reply to the Presidential Speech.”  January7, 1966 pp. 295 – 297; Hansard: Motion: Estimates of Expenditure- Ministry of Education, 6^th July 1965, pp.2799-2806.