KAMPALA — Oyam North MP Dr. Eunice Apio Otuko questioned the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) over discrepancies in its accreditation database after Makerere University’s Bachelor of Science in Food Science and Technology programme reportedly appeared as expired despite having received accreditation.
Otuko challenged the council’s failure to update its online records, arguing that the anomaly had exposed Ugandan graduates to unnecessary difficulties when seeking international academic opportunities.
She pointed to Parliament’s May 2023 resolutions, which directed NCHE to clean up its database and remove expired labels from courses that remained valid.
During the debate, the government clarified that Makerere University had received accreditation from NCHE to offer the Food Science and Technology degree in 2010 and had continued graduating students under the programme.
The government representative attributed the problem to a failure by NCHE and Makerere University to upload the course information online for verification by students and educational institutions across the world.
The explanation prompted a further challenge from the government side, with a Minister questioning how a programme that had reportedly been duly accredited could still appear as expired on the regulator’s website.
The government acknowledged the administrative error and revealed that the Ministry of Education and Sports was coordinating with Makerere University to ensure the anomaly was corrected.
Otuko’s intervention exposed the gap between the official accreditation status of university programmes and the information available on the regulator’s digital platform.
The matter raised broader concerns about the reliability of academic verification systems and the responsibility of regulatory institutions to maintain accurate records.
