Canada is in the process of establishing two universities in Uganda; and they will be operational within the next two months. The two universities have already been registered with both the Registrar of Companies and the National Council of Higher Education (NCHE).
Under the Canadian Inter-province Curriculum Development Center (CICDC) and the World Trade Facility (WTF), it is to set up the Marcus Garvey University in Ngora in Eastern Uganda; and the Canadian Great Lakes International University, based in Kampala.
This is the brain child of CICDC Professor, Simon Peter Kasirye Kabala, who was in the country for the last five months, on this academic undertaking. Kabala said that he has registered more than 230 Primary and Secondary schools across the country that will be affiliated to the Canadian universities.
Additional Canadian universities will be registered to cater for Ugandan up-country campuses to be established in Koboko, Mbale, Kapchorwa, Mbarara, Ibanda, Kamwenge, Mitooma and Fort Portal. Such will be the Lake Breeze University to be set up in Mpigi at Katebo.
According to Kabala, the Canadian Great Lakes International University will be accredited to Fort Jones University in Oklahoma State, in the United States. “The courses will be done with CICDC, linked with the university here. It will have a scholarship programme, or with those co-operatives corporate programmers attached to business,” he said. “The students will study, work and pay their way through their courses,” Kabala added.
The potential financiers for the student scholarships schemes will be funded by the International Global Occupancy Guild. “This is an association of academics who support knowledge-seekers who cannot support themselves,” Kabala said.
The PhD, Research and Doctoral courses are costed at $12,000, but will be offered to these students at a subsidized fees structure of $6,500. The Masters programme is put at $4,000 and the undergraduate courses at $2,500. Half of this money will be immediately paid by the funders. Each of these courses will have a charge levied on it at $500.
The courses will come with a Notary Public of the District of Columbia in Washington State of the US. This is the recognition by the US State Department that gives the degrees acceptability in the US, Canada, Uganda and elsewhere, which recognize the academic excellence of these institutions.
In the immediate, the Canadian Great Lakes International University, will take in about 50 of the already 150 students who will undertake PhD, Doctoral and Maters courses, undertaken here in Kawempe, at the Inclusion International (Uganda Chapter), a campus for the handicapped, run by veteran educationist, Bertha Kawooya. This intake is for the students to acclimatize themselves to the Apple computer programme which is consistent with the CICDC requirements accredited through the Benchmark Transcript Chronology.
In all, this year, the CICDC programme in the Canadian universities will take in about 500 students, most of whom Kabala has already interviewed. The mother Canada universities will also send trained academic staff that have a protocol with the Fort Jones Professional Career Development Institute.
The Marcus Garvey University is tandem with the Conservatory of Appropriate Technology and Afro-Center Education, which is connected to the Equatorial Agro-Integrated Development Snuzzy (EADS). “This center is interested in establishing, here in Uganda, an agro-integrated commercial fruit enterprise connected to honey production.”
It has already identified the Amuria Cashew Nut Project in Amuria District, which will be allied with the Toronto-based EADS. The project aims to support a broad-based commercial agro-production which will integrate traditional seed and food crops with genetically-modified ones. It is aimed at producing beverage products from a range of crops such as: mangoes, lemons, oranges, cocoa, cashew nuts, guavas, coffee and apples. This is aside from the apiary section.
Through these projects and programmes, when the Marcus Garvey University is operational, it will directly employ about 1, 000 people each earning no less than
UGX 1, 500, 000. It will give at least 200 jobs to non-teaching staff. The multiplier effect of this job-creation with side-businesses like; kiosks, eating houses and lodges, will likely embrace more than 3,000 people in the catchment area, according to Kabala.
The Canadian accredited universities will be constantly involved in all these agro-production enterprise; and will introduce into their products the Canadian standards for import licenses so as to facilitate the export of quality products to Canada.
The CICDC project combines education with industry such that jobs are instantly assured after completion of studies.
