Privatisation of higher education in Uganda and the global gender justice ideal: uneasy bedfellows?

Abstract

This paper examines ways in which privatisation of education is affecting the search for gender justice through education focusing on Uganda’s higher education institutions (HEIs). Since 1988 when the first private university was opened, the winds of change have swept Uganda’s higher education sector to change how it is financed and managed. The shift has been from the state as the sole player to fully private HEIs operated as commercial enterprises alongside state‐owned ones. Even institutions that are still owned by the state are being run on the basis of free market principles. How then is the process of privatisation/liberalisation of higher education affecting establishment and/or sustainability of programmes that promote social justice, particularly gender justice in higher education and ultimately the education system? What are the implications for future efforts to promote and sustain gender justice in higher education? This paper, based on gender‐focused semi‐ethnographic research in Uganda’s HEIs, is an attempt to answer these questions within the context of current political, economic and social changes.

Keywords:

• privatisation
• education
• gender justice

Notes

1. Private HEIs do not readily increase remuneration. However for public universities in Uganda, increased enrolments arising from opening up universities to privately sponsored students has meant extra income in addition to remuneration from the government.

2. In the 1940s up to the 1960s most of the universities in Africa were affiliated to metropolitan universities in Europe and Makerere was no exception. For British colonies it was mainly the University of Cambridge and University of London.

3. This means being sued. The NCHE is a corporate body that can sue and be sued. Institutions can take it to court if they feel it is unduly interfering in their affairs.