Nkumba University has installed a new chancellor ahead of its graduation at the main campus in Entebbe tomorrow.
The chairman of Uganda National oil Company Mr Emmanuel Katongole is the new chancellor and will replace Mr Gordon Wavamunno who served for nine years.
Mr Katongole, the university’s fifth chancellor, called on government to transform the country’s education system to produce graduates who are job creators, not seekers.
“The way we frame our education system has to change. It’s no longer training people who don’t know and telling them what it is, it is no longer the teaching like a prophet. Those days are long gone. Education systems should never be factories to job seekers, they are supposed to be factories that make job makers,” Mr Katongole said during the Nkumba University 23rd commencement lecture when he was installed as new chancellor on Wednesday.
“The education we give to our children from primary to tertiary levels should not be one of learning mathematics, history, Geography and so on, it should be an education of using these tools to transform society. The most important part of education is learning how to use the education that they receive,” he added.
The lecture speaker Mr Ambrose Kibuuka said the covid 19 experience ought to have been a great learning opportunity for universities to rapidly transform into truly learning institutions as vanguards of research.
“Universities should be in position to closely monitor the trends in society and industry as a basis for continually repositioning themselves to address the changing society needs. They should abandon being driven by rigid programming based on desktop imaginations,” he said.
The board chairperson Mr Mohammed Kalyango said the outgoing chancellor Mr Wavamunno introduced the Pallemoller Award for the best students in academics.
“Lately, the construction of Wava ICT complex, which by end of his tenure was at ground floor. For all that, we as BOT [board of trustees] extend our gratitude to you, Prof. Gordon Wavamunno,” he said.
