President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has re-echoed the need for scientists to get higher pay than other professionals in the country.
This, according to the president, is because scientists are needed urgently, and it is the right time for them to work and be recognized.
“On the issue of salary, I support the scientists for the government Universities to be paid well, it is not that we are against the other professionals, but we must start with these ones because we need them now,” he explained.
The President made the remarks while officiating the 20th Anniversary celebrations of the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) at Kololo Independence Grounds on Thursday.
President Museveni also informed the Education experts that they have a duty to fulfil of ensuring that people stop believing in witchcraft and superstition and believe more in natural science because it is very crucial in solving societal problems.
“In the Middle Ages, people in Europe believed in superstition but for them they have moved on but your people here are stuck in that non-science way of life and I don’t know how you are assessing that because I find this a very big problem to have a society that is still superstition oriented,” he noted.
Ran under the theme, “20 years of the National Council for Higher Education; Transforming Higher Education In Uganda,” the president further advised that a country like Uganda should embrace the biotechnology law so that they can use it to defend themselves against any form of misuse by bad elements.
“Biotechnology can be used to do good things, but it can also be used to discover a germ which can kill only Africans because of their genetic makeup and not other people. We need to adopt the biotechnology law so that we can study it in order to use it but also to defend ourselves against the misuse. It is not good to stay away from biotechnology because other people will use it both positively and negatively,” Museveni asserted.
In her remarks, the First Lady and Minister of Education and Sports, Maama Janet Museveni disclosed that the government has endeavoured to answer the question of access to higher education by establishing more public universities and that the liberalisation of the Education Sector has also widened opportunities by allowing the private sector to further increase access to higher education through establishing institutions of learning.
“The higher education system should become relevant to the society it is operating in by rightly diagnosing the problems in society and their root causes before prescribing remedies and interventions. This is the only way higher education becomes the driver of socio-economic change.” She noted.
The Minister also urged that the higher education system must be aggressive and ambitious enough in integrating ICTs in the pedagogical approaches to learning, explaining that this will impart the much-required skills and abilities in students as they go out into the world of work.
On his part, the Chairperson of NCHE, Prof. Eli Katunguka thanked the council team for the job well done over the years, saying that they have shown that they are a formidable team.
Prof. Katunguka also thanked president Museveni for developing policies that allowed many players to come into provision of higher education services which has seen an increase in the public and private tertiary institutions and universities.
“Because of this marked expansion, we believe that new modalities of regulating these institutions need to come in place for efficient and effective regulation,” he asserted.
The NCHE Executive Director, Prof. Mary J. N. Okwakol highlighted some of the key achievements the council has been able to achieve in the last 20 years including the establishment of the secretariat, increase in the staff numbers, getting a permanent home after 13 years of renting, among others.
“We have also been able to develop a quality assurance framework for universities and other tertiary institutions to guide and monitor the performance of the institutions, but institutions also use them for self-assessment which has helped to improve the quality of education in higher institutions,” she added.