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Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | First Lady and Minister of Education and Sports Janet Kataaha Museveni has cautioned the Makerere University community against resorting to strikes as a means of expressing their grievances.
The First Lady was speaking at the Makerere – Sweden Bilateral Research Programme (MAK-SIDA) Annual Planning Meeting 2018 held at Makerere Main Hall. The event was organized to discuss and appraise the research undertakings, learning and information sharing about developments in the field of Research, Technology and Innovation.
“I want to advise students, management, and staff not to jeopardize such great collaborations through disruptive activities. We should translate the theory taught in these institutions through learning peaceful means of resolving disagreements.
Referring to the recent student’s strike against fees increment, she said strikes and student unrest jeopardizes government programs and those of development partners such as the MAK-SIDA research partnership.
She appealed to students to cooperate with the university management to ensure that public universities are run in a peaceful environment to enable such projects take off. She also asked higher education institutions to devise peaceful means of resolving conflicts.
She commended the MAK-SIDA research partnership, saying, “Research is the only avenue for the production of the high caliber of the human resource for knowledge through research and experimentation leading to creation and adaption of innovation. Research institutions support knowledge driven economic growth strategies and poverty reduction by generating new knowledge.”
Four universities in Uganda and 11 universities in Sweden have entered the cooperation aiming to promote and sustain high quality research.
“The current progress in agriculture, health, and environmental sectors, science engineering and technology is heavily dependent on the application of such research results and innovations at Universities. The government of Uganda therefore we are grateful to the Royal Government of Sweden for the generous support towards the advancement of research and innovations in institutions of higher learning,” Janet Museveni said.
Government to support Makerere programmes
She pledged government’s continued support to initiatives aimed at promoting research and innovations. “That support will continue growing as years go by and certainly we hope that it won’t be long until the government of Uganda can actually take on research completely,” the first lady said. Janet said government was committed to financing research and innovation and asked the universities to be transparent enough while using these resources in order to be able to have an impact.
“I appeal to you to continue being transparent in advancing the cause of the Makerere-Sweden Collaborative research programme. The government of Uganda shall be waiting for positive reports on the progress of this research collaboration,” said Janet. Adding that, “The strength of any university is measured from its contribution to finding remedies to its societal problems and frankly, Research and development activities have great influence on the policies of Uganda as a whole.”
