Makerere dons suspend evening lectures over pay

Just weeks after their counterparts at law school suspended evening classes over pay, lectures at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHUSS) at Makerere University have withdrawn their services to the evening under graduate program.

The lecturers took the decision following a staff meeting held last Thursday in which they unanimously decided to withdraw their services starting with the under graduate programs.

However, the decision is only binding for those students that subscribe to the school of languages, literature and communications which encompasses courses like; Journalism and communication and arts in arts.

In a letter by the acting head of department for school of languages, William Tayebwa to the principle and the dean of students at CHUSS, he urges all evening students to attend day lectures going forward.

“I write to inform you that during our staff meeting held on Thursday 25^th January 2018, in room 44, all staff in this department unanimously decided to withdraw their services on the evening undergraduate program….we noted in the meeting that the university has failed to honour the promise to remunerate staff teaching  on the evening program, which as you know is  after the public service stipulated working time,” the statement reads in part.

“As a department, we bring CHUSS a significant number of well-paying students on the evening program. For that reason, the staff teaching on that program should be remunerated accordingly. In the interim, we henceforth request all evening students to join their daytime colleagues,” the statement continues.

This comes against the heels of a suspension of evening programs by law school citing remuneration issues.

Last year, the director of Quality Assurance at Makerere University, Dr Vincent Sembatya, revealed that there was a proposal before the university council to replace all evening classes with e-learning. This he said was a move to solve the unending problems with the program.

Ssembatya explained that the university lacked adequate resources to compensate lecturers on the evening program.