Kyambogo students strike after lecturers refuse to release results

Students of Kyambogo University’s Soroti study center Thursday morning protested over their allegedly held results.

Students accuse the study centre staff of holding their results for over two months, citing government’s failure to pay the civil servants since last semester.

Isaac Opolot, one of the final students offering a Bachelor of Accounting and finance is not sure of his fate.

"Bushenyi, Kyambogo main campus have already been cleared waiting to graduate between December 10-13^th. So, what is left for us," Opolot said.

Eria Ilukor, a student offering a Bachelor's of Education, condemned lecturers for withholding results while former guild governor Joseph Erimai urged learners to involve parents in the protest since they feel the pain of paying tuition.

“We are looking forward to calling our parents to help us ask the management of the university why all this is happening," Erimai mentioned.

Moses Ogwapit Ereu, the manager of Kyambogo University Soroti learning center, appeared to suggest that external marking made it easy for lecturers to hold results.

“We have learnt this and now we are going to organize a room where we are going to be marking papers from not again lecturers to take scripts to their homes, “he said, noting that the Soroti campus has over 4,000 students with 73 lecturers.

Asked to comment on the matter, Kyambogo University senior public Relations officer Reuben Twinomujuni said: “The results were withheld by the lecturers because they want their money but we are doing our best to see that they are paid.”  

He explained that they have not yet paid the lecturers but will pay them and asked the remaining lecturers to release results.

Twinomujuni attributed the ‘financial crisis’ to the effects of Covid, adding that “at that time of recovery, we were running 3 semesters ago which suffocated the resource envelope of the institution.”

Additionally, he said the university has had talks with the ministry of finance, and there seems to be a breakthrough.  

“All students will have their results. There is no cause for alarm,” Twinomujuni told Monitor on Thursday.

About the Kyambogo Soroti study centre

The Kyambogo University Soroti study Centre is among a number of study center’s that were recently ordered to close by the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) but have since remained operational.

Kyambogo University Vice Chancellor Prof Eli Katunguka said NCHE has no mandate to stop institutions from creating learning centres.

But NCHE insists that according to Section 25 of the Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act 2001 (UOTIA), a tertiary institution has to first get NCHE approval before creating new learning centres, which Kyambogo University has failed to do ever since it operationalized Soroti study centre in 2018.