A midst the rotting halls of residence, collapsing perimeter fences, intermittent lecturers’ strikes, one may be persuaded to think that Makerere University is but a desert of good news.
Not until you pay a visit to the new Faculty of Computing and Information Technology (CIT) headed by the youthful dean Professor. Venancious Barya Baryamureeba.
Started, in 2001, the Faculty of CIT has experienced tremendous growth in terms of infrastructure, student population and teaching staff to become arguably the most attractive and the most exciting place at Uganda’s oldest centre of learning.
Over the past seven years, the institute has grown from a few rooms and a few dozen students in a powerful full fledged faculty with two beautiful buildings that are the envy of every student and visitor at the university. Currently, the faculty boasts of over 4000 students, 500 of whom are pursuing post-graduate degrees or short courses.
Under a dedicated team of a few lecturers, led by Prof. Baryamureeba, the institute has grown into one of the most outstanding centres of learning, attracting thousands of students and dozens of lecturers from the region and abroad.
The story of the steady and fast growth of this faculty is one of determination, sacrifice, hard work and above all focus, but all conspiring to achieve the ultimate goal of Excellence in Computing and Information Communication Technology, as Professor Barya observes.
In 2001, Barya and colleagues forged the vision of transforming the institute into a full fledged faculty and a centre of excellence in the field of (ICT). Their first goal was to achieve faculty status. Their effort and sacrifice quickly paid off when the institute was upgraded into a faculty in February 2005.
Around the same time, the number of students who wanted to be admitted to the faculty shot up something that overwhelmed the faculty administrators and made them to think quickly about the need to expand their premises. They hatched a plan to build a five storey building to cater for the growing need for lecture rooms and computer rooms.
And they were determined to accomplish it, as Prof. Barya recalls: “We realised that no body would give us money for construction so we embarked on a massive project that has resulted into our new building.”
He adds: “I convinced my staff that we forego expenses that are not critical, such as sitting
allowances. Because they believed in our cause, they accepted my proposal”
And now, he adds: “When they (faculty staff) see a beautiful building, many express joy because they know they made a contribution.”
Through sacrifice by lecturers, and savings from internally generated revenues, Barya and team has been able to put up a magnificent building - that is an extension of their equally beautiful structure they acquired as a donation from the Norwegian government.
Nearly complete, the new shs 20bn structure comprises of six floors with numerous lecture rooms and computer labs.
And according to Barya, the Norwegians pledged to furnish computer labs at an estimated cost of shs 8bn.
Besides its impressive infrastructural growth, the faculty has greatly expanded its course menu ranging from four undergraduate programmes, right up to PhD level in areas such as - Software Engineering, Information Systems, Information Technology and Computer Science.
This expansion has been largely facilitated by the faculty administration’s efforts to woo specialists in ICT from across the globe to come to lecture on different programmes knowing that the country did not have many of such rare skills.
On top of its strong team of 250 academic staff, the University hires about 30 international visiting staff every year.
Prof. Barya notes: “From the funds we’ve been generating from midnight programmes, short courses and even the masters programme, we’ve been preserving a big portion of it and investing it in hiring the best professors from across the globe to come here to teach.”
“We’ve been focusing on them to fill the human resource gap for the short term as we encourage our staff to upgrade to Masters and PhD,” he adds.
Ambitious plan to raise staffing levelsLast month, the faculty’s first PhD student and now a Dr. Agnes Rwashana Ssemwanga successfully completed the defence of her thesis.
Dr. Ssemwanga joins a growing list of lecturers at the faculty who have advanced from holders of Bachelors degrees to PhDs albeit from other universities in Europe and elsewhere. About a dozen others are pursuing PhDs in South Africa, Europe and America.
Now with many of them enrolled or about to enrol for PhDs, Barya is confident that his rather ambitious goal of having at least one PhD graduate every month and coming back to the faculty to boost their teaching staff, will be attained.
And this is just one step on their long journey: “Our goal is to have 100 PhDs by 2010,” Barya confidently adds.
His argument is: “Once we have a large number of PhD holders, there are many international companies such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Google, Cisco that are willing to give us money for research as long as we have the profile that meets their minimum standards.” He adds: “You can’t say I want to carry out serious research when you have one PhD in an area.”
The faculty has again been fast in forging ties with world leading organisations in the various fields of computer science including networking, and software development.
For instance, over the past couple of years, they have been able to sign Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with 4 leading organisations such as Cisco networking, Microsoft, Google - and well as six universities, all of which are globally reputable institutions. The main gist of these collaborations has been teaching whereby the university undertakes to train students in say networking but when it comes to exams, it is the organisation like Cisco that sets, marks and awards certificates.
“These collaborations improve the employability of our students because by presenting a certificate to employer, he/she would know the kind of skills a person has.” And besides, he adds: “It helps to boost the reputation of the faculty as a centre that has the capacity to train people in those areas.”
Favourable environmentIt may also be fair to say that the fast growth of this faculty has had a lot to do with the times when the world, and more so Uganda, is experiencing a computer revolution.
It is during the last decade that most offices, both in the public as well as the private sector and in some instances homes, have embraced the use of computers in processing and storing data.
The telecommunications boom also experienced in the last ten years has helped to not only bring about high-end computing, it has created jobs for thousands of Ugandans which has in turn encouraged students to opt for computer-related courses because they are some of the best-paying jobs.
And because of the critical importance of computers in almost every sphere of modern life, most employers are now demanding that job applicants must be competent in computer knowledge.
Barya also prides himself in the trust that donors have in his administration which he says has raised the faculty’s chances of receiving support from donors and hence the ability to implement much more ambitious programmes.
There is a lot of creativity as well. For instance, the faculty was the first institution to introduce Midnight classes for working people.
This has helped the faculty’s ambition of providing education for all.
He argues: “You cannot be a professional police officer, a professional soldier without IT skills. So this programme targets the key sectors of the economy so that they can obtain IT skills and improve their productivity.”
And now, through the Pan-African E-Network - a programme funded by the African Union and the government of India, the faculty has embarked on an even more aggressive campaign to take computer literacy lessons to seven centres of excellence located in all the six geographic regions of the country. Under this programme, the faculty is acts as a centre that transmits voice and data lessons to other centres in the country as well as to 13 other countries in East and Southern African countries using ICT.
Through sacrifice comes success, some say.
And a dozen or so of individual as well as team awards given to members of the faculty are testimony to this. Last year, for instance, Prof. Barya was voted second runner-up for the annual President’s science award.
The same year, he received the ‘Top ICT Educator/ Academic’ Award in Africa. He is in line for the same award this year again after having emerged among the top three finalists.
And if the number of qualified graduates outstrips the growth in available jobs, Prof. Barya is confident his students will have the capacity to create the jobs and employ their colleagues.
He is particularly confident because of a special business incubation programme they have started which gives graduates practical skills in running businesses.
“We give our students side courses in French, business skills, proposal writing, at no cost. We know that these ‘soft’ skills are very important,” he adds: “We have started with a smaller group of about 100 who join the incubation programme for six months, we put about 100 graduates under this programme and at the end of the six months, every student gets certified as a software engineer and is able to run a software company on his/her own.
”But the number could well increase, because many in the private and donor sectors are finding it very useful and are ready to support it. “We want companies to start from the faculty and end up on our silicon valley in Katwe.” “We are investing in them now with the hope that in a few years to come, those companies will bring back that money to support us to grow.”
A team from the USJA led by the chairperson William Odinga Balikuddembe met the top Management of the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology (UNCST) on June 10, 2008 and they discussed among other issues the National Science Week, the President’s Science award and the Uganda Conference for Science Communication 2008. They pledged to promote the events as well as the communication of science in the country.br>
Dr Peter Ndemere, the Executive Secretary of the UNCST said: “Poverty, disease and ignorance were issues of the 1960s but are still high on the agenda. One of the missing links is communication.”
The Uganda National Academy of Sciences (UNAS) will hold a Media/Scientist workshop May 30, 2008, at Hotel Equatorial in Kampala.
Workshop objectives include: reinforcing the relationship between the media, scientists and the Academy, examining appropriate and effective approaches to communicating scientific information in Uganda, strengthening the media’s understanding of technical, scientific information, and developing dialogue between scientists and the media.
The entire membership of Uganda Science Journalists Association is saddened with the untimely death of one of its members Samuel Wossita who passed away in a motor accident on Saturday 19, 2008 at Nyendo along the Kampala – Masaka highway.
Until his death, Mr. Wossita, was working with The Daily Monitor newspaper as their education and sports reporter. And was also the General Secretary of USJA.
USJA Chairman Mr. William Odinga Balikudembe expressed grief about the death of Sam as the late was popularly known by USJA members. Mr. Odinga said: "Wossita was full of zeal which is what made him a special person. It is very painful to lose him. He has been a hardworking member of USJA. He has left a big gap in the USJA"
And on his part, USJA patron Mr. Patrick Luganda said: "I have received the devastating news of the death of our brother. My condolences to the media fraternity especially to all science journalists in Uganda."
Wossita was survived by a widow and three children.
May his soul rest in eternal peace.
The chairperson of the Uganda Science Journalists Association (USJA), William Odinga Balikuddembe, has announced that the association is organizing a major science communication conference in Uganda to be held in November 2008.
He made the announcement in Doha-Qatar on February 6th, 2008, while addressing a meeting of trainees and trainers in science journalism under the World Federation of Science Journalists’ (WFSJ) Science Journalism Cooperation (SjCOOP) project
The conference, dubbed “the Uganda Conference for Science Communication,” will be the first of its kind in Sub-Saharan Africa and will be held once every two years.
It will bring together journalists, scientists, researchers, communication experts and other stakeholders from different parts of the world to discuss the development of science and science communication in Uganda, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the world in general.
The conference will give scientists an opportunity to exhibit their work and help in fostering the interaction of scientists and journalists.
The conference is being supported by the WFSJ and the Association of British Science Writers (ABSW).
Conference details to follow.
by Henry Lutaaya
Like many things that are rapidly changing in Buganda, the long held tradition of growing and eating matooke (plantain) is on a sure path into oblivion, unless some drastic measures are put in place, researchers have warned.
The declining production of matooke in Uganda’s central region over the past few decades has largely been due to poor farming methods which have depleted soil fertility, according to Dr. Andrew Kiggundu, a senior researcher at Kawanda Agricultural Research Institute.
Dr. Kiggundu, who heads the biotechnology laboratory at Kawanda, said: “People were asking why bananas do not flourish in Buganda the way they used to and instead the western region is now leading in banana production.
“Our research shows that mature and infertile soils can no longer support banana production the way they used to some years ago.” He added that research done by other institutions indicates that soils in tropical areas such as Uganda are fast losing fertility.
Kiggundu warned: “Unless farmers learn to nourish their soils, the country is facing a serious problem of lack of sufficient food.” Agriculture is the bedrock of Uganda’s economy. It employs over 80% of the population, majority of whom are poor and vulnerable subsistence farmers.
But its not that farmers are totally ignorant about the need to nourish their soils, Kiggundu observed. “During our research we found that some people were actually aware that practices such as mulching and application of organic manure were important in ensuring good and sustainable production of bananas. And when we asked them why they were not doing it (mulching), they would not give a convincing answer.”
The researchers also observed that agricultural commercialisation has had a huge toll on the growing of a number of products especially those that are not commercially viable. Farmers, thus, have lost the diversity which used to help ensure good nutrition.
As the soils have matured, pests and weevils have also multiplied to accelerate disappearance of some crops.
In the recent past banana growers have had to battle an avalanche of bacterial and fungal infections such as nematodes and the disastrous Black Sigatoka.
Scientists at Kawanda and other researchers are in laboratories trying to come up with varieties of crops that can withstand diseases, perform better in poor soils, as well as withstand droughts.
On top of its food values, matoke is engrained in the cultures of some communities such as the Baganda. And it could surprise many that the species eaten as food in Uganda are found only in East Africa. These species are known as East African Highland bananas.
The National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO) -- the umbrella body for all agricultural research work in the country -- has over the past couple of years released varieties of bogoya (banana), cassava, millet, mangoes among several other crops that perform better than traditional varieties.
USJA members Patrick Luganda and Esther Nakkazi have been recognized for their role in the development of an on-line course for science journalists. They received certificates on February 4th, 2008, during the launch of the course in Doha-Qatar.
The course is among the World Federation of Science Journalists’ (WFSJ) activities to develop science journalism around the world.
The first eight lessons are being made public on the WFSJ website www.wfsj.com in English, French and Arabic. Science journalists, trainers and students are invited to make use of the online lessons, and to send feedback to the editors, Julie Clayton (Julie.clayton@scidev.net) or Jan Lublinski (lublinski@aol.com).
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UGANDA'S PIONEER GMs FLOURISHING AT KAWANDA