4,000 of 36,000 to be awarded gov’t diploma scholarships

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | More than 36,000 students across Uganda have applied for government-sponsored diploma programmes in tertiary institutions to undertake diploma programmes.

However, only 4,000 of them, representing only 11 percent of the applicants, will receive government scholarships, leaving over 32,000 applicants without support.

Hajj Muzamiru Mukwatampola, the Commissioner in charge of Admissions, Scholarships, and Students’ Affairs (ASSA), said the board is currently reviewing all submitted applications to identify the most deserving candidates based on merit and eligibility.

“The number of applicants is overwhelming compared to the limited scholarship slots available. However, our task is to ensure that placement is done fairly and that the most deserving students, based on their choices, are selected,” he said.

The placement process, which is being handled by the Joint Admissions Board (JAB), has started and will continue until the end of this week. Students will be allocated to 38 public institutions across the country.

Successful applicants will be placed in technical colleges, colleges of commerce, ICT institutes, meteorology and land surveying schools, forestry and wildlife training centres, as well as agricultural, fisheries, and public medical institutions nationwide.

Hajj Mukwatampola added that there is also a decentralised admission scheme, which is expected to offer an additional 2,000 slots. “These are allocated regionally, giving local institutions some autonomy in selecting students from their respective areas,” Muwanguzi added.

The high number of applicants reflects a growing demand for tertiary education among Senior Six leavers. However, government scholarship opportunities have remained largely unchanged in number over the years, both for universities and diploma-awarding institutions.

Each year, the government sponsors 4,000 students under the national merit scheme, distributed across the 11 public universities. Since 2005, an additional 1,000 students have benefited annually through the district quota system, which aims to ensure regional equity by covering at least 146 districts. There is also a smaller scheme targeting persons with disabilities and talented individuals in sports. Despite the expansion of public universities over the years, the number of government-sponsored slots has remained unchanged.

Before the 1990s, the Ugandan government fully funded university education for all students admitted to Makerere University, the country’s only university at the time. This changed following structural adjustment reforms encouraged by the World Bank. In his book Scholars in the Marketplace, Professor Mahmood Mamdani noted that these reforms were driven by the World Bank’s belief that higher education was more of a private than a public good.

Since then, the government has adopted a limited-slot scholarship model for public institutions of higher learning. However, critics argue that beyond the small number of available slots, the selection process managed by the Joint Admissions Board (JAB) tends to favour students from well-resourced or urban schools, leaving those from rural and underprivileged backgrounds at a disadvantage.

When asked about the growing demand and limited number of scholarships, State Minister for Higher Education, John Chrysostom Muyingo, bluntly stated that increasing the number of government-sponsored slots is not currently under consideration, nor is it likely in the foreseeable future. He explained that government resources are stretched across many competing priorities.

He emphasised that there are now multiple ways through which students can access and finance higher education.  “We are encouraging other avenues like student loans and private sponsorship. Government cannot do it alone,” Muyingo explained.

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