The government through the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) has said it does not recognise 66 PhD awards given to students by Kampala International University (KIU) between 2011 and 2012.
This follows the findings of a task force instituted last year after the university awarded 44 of its students the highest education qualification.
According to the council chairperson, Prof Nyeko Pen-Mogi, KIU policy documents were well written and contained good procedures that could have produced quality PhD graduates if they were followed.
“We don’t recognise 66 KIU PhD degrees in their current state. We don’t want any of our Universities to be blacklisted. Higher education has become a business. Somebody starts up a University without proper structures and qualified staff,” said Prof. Pen-Mogi as he addressed journalists in Kampala yesterday.
Out of the 66 candidates, 24 of whom were in the 2011 graduation, the dissertations of eight will require minor corrections, 36 require major revisions before the PhD awards can be recognised. But 22 dissertations were rejected generally for “having serious conceptual, philosophical, theoretical, methodological and new knowledge deficiencies as well as obvious plagiarism that rendered them irredeemable.”
However, KIU Vice Chancellor PK Tibenderana yesterday said they needed more time to look at the report before the University can issues an official statement.
The head of the taskforce instituted to give a report on the KIU PhDs, Prof. Opuda-Asibo said seven of the supervisors had fake degrees from unrecognised learning institutions.
The acting NCHE executive director, Prof. Moses Golola, said their action was aimed at promoting quality in higher education.
The NCHE is a government body mandated to monitor, regulate and report on the operations of all training institutions of higher learning, with an aim of ensuring that they follow all government policies and procedures in regard to education, so as to protect the quality of education in the country.
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