Fortunate Ahimbisibwe
3 May 2008
Kampala — THE provisional admission list of government-sponsored students at public universities shows a huge gap between boys and girls. Out of the 3,000 students admitted on merit, only 940, or 32%, are girls.
The admission list also shows that boys continue to dominate the science-based programmes, while girls dominate the arts courses.
However, only 25% of the slots are allocated to arts courses. This suggests that girls are still at a disadvantage, despite the fact that they are awarded a bonus of 1.5 points under the affirmative action programme. For example, only one girl has been admitted to study Pharmacy, out of 18 students. Twenty-four of those admitted to study Medicine are girls, while 52 are boys. When it comes to Law, there are 67 girls and only 9 boys.
A source on the admissions board said the policy on admissions had become unfriendly to female students when the Government stopped sponsoring arts courses. "We cannot admit girls if they have not passed. The solution is for the Government to encourage and facilitate more girls to do sciences as a way of reducing the imbalance," the source said.
The Government, for a third year, is not sponsoring certain arts courses which were once popular with girls. They include Mass Communication, Tourism, Bachelor of Arts, Social Work and Social Administration, Human Resource Management, Development Studies, Library and Information Science, Adult and Community Education, Urban Planning, Social Sciences, Arts with Education and Secretarial Studies.
The Government stopped sponsoring these courses as part of its new policy to promote sciences and courses considered important for national development.
Such courses include Law, Information Technology, Computer Science and Economics, Engineering, Pharmacy, Medicine, Agriculture, Veterinary medicine, Food Science and Technology, Statistics, Quantitative Economics, Surveying and Architecture.
The admissions board, chaired by Makerere University's deputy vice chancellor for academic affairs, Prof. Lillian Ekirikubinza, last week discussed the provisional admission list, which is pending approval by the education ministry.
A total of 84,000 A' Level students graduated in 2007. Of those, 53,000 passed with two principals, the minimum requirement for university admission. This is 20% more than the previous year, when 44,805 were eligible for university. However, the Government continues to sponsor only 4,000 students.
Under the current arrangement, Makerere University will take in 1,800 government-sponsored students, Kyambogo 700, Mbarara University of Science and Technology 300, Gulu 200 and Busitema 100. The remaining 800 will be admitted under the district-quota system, introduced two years ago, under which each district is allocated 10 slots. The board will sit next week to consider admissions for students under this system.
The admission list is still dominated by top schools, mainly within the central region. These include Namagunga, Budo, St. Mary's College Kisubi, Namilyango, Kitovu, Gayaza High, Nabisunsa, Makerere College, Kawempe Muslim, Katikamu SS, Ndejje SS, Gombe, Uganda Martyrs Namugongo and St. Mary's Kitende.
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please send me the list talked about in the article to brian.jjuuko@orient-bank.com