MUK LABOUR
My Nieces and Nephews are seated at home waiting for Makerere University to open. I had
earlier advised them against enrolling in Makerere University for obvious
reasons – the rampant breakdown of order in MUK disrupts academic progress. Now,
and under this dispensation, it is untenable to trust public institutions.
Parents and students should focus on acquiring education in stable private universities
if they can afford.
I have had to explain to my
Nieces and Nephews that the problem of Makerere University is the problem of
how this economy is organised, and how it relates with labour. In a capitalist
market, labour is what attracts income in monetary terms, and market related
benefits and privileges. The public servants in this country serve at a
disadvantage beyond their own means because of the way the economy is organised.
One, government is on retreat from providing
social services and as such, it is expected that the private sector assume
these roles. Unfortunately, our economy is inelastic. It is not expanding in
proportion with government’s retraction rate. This means there is deficit in
services to the public. Unemployment and lack of healthcare services can attest.
Secondly, Academicians are sophisticated group of workers. Their labour is intellectual
labour, which sells at a high price than menial labour. However, in Uganda’s
case, their output is not matching their input. There are hardly novel intellectual
products emerging out of Uganda to spur the economy. Even the volumes of
research and publication are think to support the state investment in this
class of workers. Third, by closing MUK, government is devaluing the
institution to elicit a haemorrhage of students to private Universities.
No parent would wish to
associate with a University that closes frequently, has to strike to resolve
simple administrative problems, or someone must undress to be heard. No! The
market is a competitive place where such pattern of commotion reinforces the hidden
hands in shaping and regulating Makerere out of the marketplace.
Unlike MUK, situated in the
heart of the city, you will never hear that Mbarara University has closed and
you can ask yourself the “why” question.
The advantage of closing MUK
is a cost cutting strategy for the state given the bad form in which our
economy finds itself post 2016 February botched elections. Donors are
tightening their cash taps, and the foreign debts have escalated. By shutting
down MUK, the government can save money and invest it in critical areas to
stabilise the faltering economy. At this point, it is rather safer to rescue a
bank than a non-productive MUK.
The other potential
explanation can arise from political economy perspective. By examining the
characteristic of the Uganda’s economy, one clearly observes that government
has withdrawn from nearly all its public responsibilities except in security.
In developing countries that are steadily moving into middle-income category, education
and health are decommodified. In our economy, we have commodified those and
made them very inaccessible to the masses in this era of HIV/AIDS and growing
chronic diseases. Try to look at the concentration and distribution in both
healthcare and education services across the country. You see a glaring pattern
where 80% of high quality services are concentrated in urban and peri-urban
centres where roughly 20% of the population resides. The rural communities have
to contend with near absence of government, or a crude form of government
represented by low-end services and decay in public facilities.
There is some optimism that
Ugandans must adapt to the liberal economy and make good of the available markets.
It is a promising market when properly managed. The point of pessimism is that,
while this market demands for deregulation, the state has not adhered to this
rule. The interference in the private enterprises is notable where private and
public institutions operate as if they belong to the state owners. The state’s
continued monitoring and extorting private enterprises has sustained
distortions seen in the form of corruption and inefficiency. A failure for
public servants to organise strong unions across the country therefore, makes
them disposable and non-competitive as private sector players. For government,
their continued interference drives potential talent away from public to
private sectors.
END
