peregrine

University Rankings Uganda

peregrine — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:37:00 GMT

This is the General ranking of Ugandan Universities by Peregrine. Top spot is taken by Makerere ranked 47th in Africa on the web (Website visibility, and research papers published on it's website) and ranked 6,413th in world on the web. The rankings saw second spot taken by Kyambogo due to the fact of having courses offered in technology and humanities. For the private universities credit should be given to Kampala International University for developing Science based courses with the Introduction of degrees in Medicine, Pharmacy etc and with state of art modern infrastructure for the students. Down the buttom there's Lugazi, St. Lawrence which were recently licenced by the MoE and yet to start International Health Sciences University in Namuwongo.

University Rankings Uganda

1	Makerere University
2	Kyambogo University
3	MUBS
4	Mbarara University
5	Uganda Christian University
6	Kampala International University
7	Gulu University
8	Islamic University in Uganda
9	Nkumba University
10	Uganda Martyrs Nkozi
11	Ndejje University
12	Busitema University
13	Bugema University
14	Kampala University
15	Busoga University
16	Kabale University
17	Uganda Pentecostal University
18	Mt. of the Moons University
19	Lugazi University
20	St. Lawrence University
21	Fairland University
22	International Health Sciences University

Ranking Methodology:

Data from Newvision University Guide (Staff numbers, Degrees offered, International afiliations)
Online research publications
Staff & their qualifications published on corresponding websites
Infrastructure
Research degrees offered
Notable alumni
Competition based on cut off points admission requirements.

World's cheapest Car at 4m

peregrine — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 14:49:00 GMT

India's TATA Group has unveiled what has been called "The World's Cheapest Car"

Brand new TaTa Nano priced at $2500 (4 million Uganda Shillings) will hit the market later this year. The Nano will revolutionalize transport in India but it may go on further even to other continents especially Africa.

Whats failing the Kenyans?

peregrine — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 12:53:00 GMT

Kenya many regarded as a stable democracy is in ruins, houses burnt, over 100,000 displaced in the country once seen as the model democracy of the region, the cause is non other than the 27th December 2007 disputed elections. But what beats my understanding is whats failing the Kenyans?.

Kenya is a country which has never had any war after Independence in 1963, 44 years down the road its almost the same as Uganda which has been in wars for more than 3 decades. The countries education system is in tatters, students travel miles and miles to attend the available government or private schools. The public schools lack personnel.

Much as the previous and current Presidents have been boosting of the country's economy but the common man, the local man in the village has nothing to see in his palms. The road networks allover the country are full of potholes save for the "cream parts" where hardworking MPs come from or where the previous presidents came from.

Kenyans today like many other citizens of African countries are complaining of lack of jobs, lack of good education, lack of health facilities, and lack of security. When the so called leaders stand on the podium they are the first people to promise creation of jobs, provide health care, improve education etc. How can you create jobs from nothing?, how can you improve health care with no facilities in place including the doctors or health professionals, how can you improve the education system with no availability of teachers?.

People line up very early in the morning to go and cast ballots, putting trust in one man not knowing, these are the same men with their own hidden agendas best known to themselves. The opposition claims to have been cheated of victory, yes the whole world saw that and please don't forget in Africa beating an incumbent is close to a camel passing through an eye of the needle.

Violence broke out, people murdered in cold blood, houses raged, shops looted of which these acts were mainly done by the opposition supporters at one point quoting BBC the opposition supporters raided a private university and demanded a particular ethnic group delivered to them for slaughter!! with all that going on slogans everywhere No Raila No Peace, and even the Leader of the main opposition party seemed to echo the motto what kind of leaders has Kenya brought forward? Leaders after personal gain and not care about others dying?, leaders too proud that swallowing humble pie and allow fake defeat for the good of the nation and the region? Leaders too proud to doctor election votes such that to stay in power?

Having a support base of jobless, idle and mostly uneducated youths is risky because in case of instability they'll tarnish your political image. Raila's support base are rowdy youths who brought the nation to its knees with the mass demonstrations, violence never seen in Kenya. You cant create jobs for such people and first of all from nowhere. Creation of jobs is through investors setting up heavy industries. Heavy Industries such as Car assembly plants or manufacturing plants can't set base in Kenya because of its lack of the required skills, and also other heavy industry companies such as IBM, Microsoft etc can't step in Kenya the other remaining industries most of the work is automated by robots which do most of the work. So the lies of creating jobs should just stop, people should just continue with their creativity and not bank on their leaders that they will create jobs because its a pure lie.

There's much to say, but the reality is the leaders have failed the people of Kenya non of the two men either Raila or Kibaki are fit to be in State House, they have all failed the mark. They all didn't care to humble themselves in the first place for the good of the image of Kenya and her people, the two men failed to realize that violence going on claimed a lot of lives, people burnt in the house of God alive until the international community stepped in and they came to their senses and called off the rallies countrywide.

Its high time come Dec 2012 for the people of Kenya not to bring back any of those who were involved in the violence either directly or indirectly by their supporters. Democracy should prevail, discard all those oldies and look for well educated young blood.

African Politics 2007, a lesson to learn

peregrine — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 16:21:00 GMT

The year 2007 has had a tremendous impact on the political environment of Africa. As usual politics in Africa is full of violence, malice, sabotage, unfree and unfair elections, but December 2007 has been a memorable month to all Africans. From the contest between the Republic of South Africa's (RSA) President Thambo Mbeki and suspended VP Jacob Zuma, the recently concluded hotly contested polls between incumbent President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya and opposition candidate Engineer Raila odinga.

Going first down to South Africa, two great, experienced men in politics Jacob Zuma and Thambo Mbeki vying to be the President of African National Congress (ANC) the ruling and biggest party in RSA takes the top position. Jacob Zuma who before was an intelligence officer, later became RSAs Vice President during the reign of Thambo Mbeki and later suspended due to corruption charges, sex and rape stood out and won the hearts of ANC delegates. Both Mbeki and Zuma at 67 were vying for the party's top position, which is crucial in choosing the next Presidential candidate and obviously also which many believe the next President of RSA. Zuma who many believe will be the next President put up a hard fought battle against the incumbent and beat his main challenger successfully.

Despite being with corruption charges hanging on his neck in court, Zuma was the person who ANC delegates saw that he would fulfill whatever Mbeki had failed to fulfill in his two terms in office as President. If Mbeki had won the ANC Presidency this meant he would largely influence the election of the presidential candidate come 2009 when he is supposed to retire from office since according to South African constitution, the President is supposed to serve ONLY two terms. Zuma who played a big role during the fight against apartheid was the people's favorite and he surely was, even though with his personal life shortcomings. Many believe the corruption charges were hugely engineered to tarnish his image and dent his future plans for running for RSAs presidency. Zuma is the man who was taken to court on counts of sex and rape, and is the man who said after having sex he had a shower as a preventive measure against AIDS. All in all human beings are not perfect but the theory that only one man has vision, i see it as a weak, primitive and undemocratic philosophy. South Africa seems to be moving on the road to democracy.

Most recently the concluded presidential and parliamentary elections in Kenya have a great lesson for the whole of Africa. Also two great men the incumbent President Mwai Kibaki facing his main challenger Raila Odinga. it's evident that the people of Kenya rejected the ruling party PNU of Mwai Kibaki and go with Odinga's newly formed ODM. The MPs elected to the housed showed ODM taking more than 90 seats in parliament and the president's party PNU with a mere 36 seats. According to the released presidential results and the main Kenyan news papers, some places had a voter turn of 100+, and the Electoral Commission delay in declaring the winner shows that still Africa has a long way to go in matters regarding democracy. To a common man's eye it's evident that, if ODM swept a clean vote in the Parliamentary elections which were held on the same day as the Presidential elections, then it makes no sense whereby someone can vote for an opposition party for a parliamentary seat and then vote the incumbent for presidency. All along since voting, Opposition candidate Raila Odinga had a commanding lead, until the Electoral Commission went into hiding and stopped the releasing of results citing disappearance of returning officers, within no time Mwai Kibaki then was declared President and even sworn in there and then after trailing all the time hmmmm African politics!!!

All in all when it comes to politics in Africa, the continent is still merged in fraud, violence, fear, sabotage name it, but despite all that there are some countries which are moving the right direction such as SouthAfrica. If Africa is to develop we need political stability, free and fair elections and reinstating of two presidential term limits especially in Uganda. If two terms have worked for Kenya, Uganda, SouthAfrica etc. why should we be with life presidency, why should we claim only one man has vision?, If it wasn't for the member of parliaments of Nigeria resisting Obasanjo's demands in lifting the presidential term limits Nigeria would have been with Obasanjo uptodate. Even in primary, secondary schools and University prefects, councillors, and guild presidents serve once i really question the integrity of some member of parliaments who allowed to be preached to and went ahead with lifting the presidential term limits.

Africa Today needs change, dictators need to go, two terms maximum and leave office we need new brains, new minds, new everything. Alot of people have vision.

President Museveni wants a new Jet, is it worth it?

peregrine — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 23:14:00 GMT

Gulf Stream 5

The Daily Monitor published an article dated 8th December, that PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni has summoned MPs on the Presidential Affairs committee to brief them about his urgent need for a brand new Gulf Stream 5 (G5) presidential jet.

The President while meeting the MPs at State house in Nakasero said he is in a dilemma since manufacturers have stopped producing Gulf Stream 4 (G4) jets yet the government does not have the capacity to stock spare parts for overhauling the plane. He said overhauling the plane is more costly than buying a new jet. The president said manufacturers have shifted interest to the Gulf Stream 5.

The President started with a Gulf Stream II which costed the country more than 20 billion UG Shs. He changed it citing reasons that the G II couldn't reach London by express, and would make stopovers thus a security threat!.

The Gulf Stream II was traded and he acquired the G III. In the year 2000 Uganda was targeted for debt relief, this was a party the parliament approved about $31.5 million dollars (54 billion UG Shs.) for a Gulf Stream IV Special Peformance (G IV SP) jet which aeronautically, its a good bird in terms of performance. The GIV SP needs not stop overs to most destinations. Aviation experts put a price tag of about $47 million dollars (80 billion UG Shs. for the final cost of the GIV SP)

Not many years down the road, the President wants a Gulf Stream V. The G V is capable of carrying up to 16 people in standard seating configurations, and able to fly up to 6,500 nautical miles (7480 miles or 12,038 km)

The president said the producers of the Gulf Stream series of air crafts have stopped the production of the G IV he owns and they have shifted interest to the G V.

If the President wishes go through and it's certain he will get the G V,Uganda will spend more than 70 billion Uganda shillings in acquiring a new presidential aircraft used non other than one person.

The President should understand that the G V has been in production since 1995 and certified in 1997, and He should understand that even up to date Gulf Stream Aerospace the producer of the classic airplanes is still selling a modified version of the Gulf Stream IV he doesn't want to use.

Gulf Streams are very expensive and efficient air crafts mostly used by the rich and the US army, navy, coast guard and Israeli Air force those folks swim in dollars compared to a poverty stricken and backward country like Uganda with a bad economy, low standard of living, low mortality rate, no schools upcountry etc.

As an aerospace engineer I am convinced that the spare parts of the G IV will be available in plenty, and there's no major aerospace manufacturer that discontinues a product and no engineering support isn't put into place in this case spare parts and overhauling.

With the 60 billion Uganda shillings alot of health centers can be constructed upcountry, and primary health care will be close to the people.

Rich nations like Britain the Queen fly British Airways commercial jets, the Prime minister the same so why should tax payers money go into a jet which won't benefit he common man?.

Gulf Stream 4 and typical G IV interior

Chimps outperform humans!!!!

peregrine — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 22:05:00 GMT

Young chimps have outperformed university students in memory tests devised by Japanese research

They can race up a tree far faster than any human, our closest relative chimpanzee is
stronger and more agile than us, now new research shows they can beat us in brain power
too

In a Japanese laboratory chimps been taught to number were put to the test, the challenge
was to count from one to nine in the right order, using a touch sensitive screen with numbers randomly displayed on it, there was no problem for these mathematical wizards.

Then it got harder the numbers were flashed out briefly and then hidden, the chimps had just a fraction
of a second to memorize their positions it's a task that almost requires photographic memory, the chimps performed brilliantly.

In the next test the numbers were hidden but this time some were missing,the challenge wasn't only to remember the position but to keep the number sequence intact the scientist said the animals showed extra ordinary abilities.

They were pitted against university students but the humans were no match for speed and accuracy of their clever cousins the chimpanzees. The younger chimps did best outperforming their mothers and humans.

We always thought we are intellectually superior but in some ways it's the chimp who comes on top.

Is the human generation deteriorating physically and mentally?

Has Makerere really lost it's glory?

peregrine — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 00:32:00 GMT

There has been debate whether our renowned MUK a.k.a MAK it's glory days are over. Renown writers and former scholars such as Prof. Mazrui also drive the last nail into Mak's coffin.

Turning to the "Webometrics" rankings 2007 Makerere only managed to take the 53rd position on the Continent whereby a host of South African Universities are the top 10.

Before going into the details, Webometrics methodology is based on web publication, results from the major search engines such as google, yahoo, visibility of a university web page, and number of citations of papers published. Well we can start by arguing that they are not academic rankings like those released by the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) or Shangai Jiao Tong University rankings but the point still remains Mak is behind compared to the major East African Universities when it comes to web publication, research papers published online and citations. In East- Africa new comers Dar es Salam University ranked 21, Nairobi University ranked 23 out of 100.

If we were to consider the academic rankings, well the once known Harvard of Africa during the 60s and 70s had a good ride having produced famous graduates. Came the period of private sponsorship, corruption and we saw drama unfold at the famous hill, with recent fake degrees, forging of academic transcipts has led to the sinking of MAK.

Numbers have risen at MAK, that the student to lecturer ratio is 1:100+ in some faculties, the university has introduced courses which are more or less the same but offered in different faculties in order to create income, the quality of education has slumped due to the surging numbers, underfunding, the university currently lacks well educated and experienced academics.

Lack of research has affected the level of teaching, just like one university in Ghana put it "He who doesn't research has nothing to teach", without research and publication lecturers end up using old material, which is recycled over and over again every academic year. Though Sweden, Norway and other European governments support the university in terms of research grants the research results are supposed to be published in peer review Journals, in so doing the level of research will be elevated and this will increase publishing.

Alot of lecturers have managed to go for further studies and they have attained PhDs but on a sad note, publishing is still low, you find in some faculties they are no lecture guides published by the lecturers instead they refer to books published by their peers in US, UK, Canada or Australia, this dwarfs the mind of the lecturer and also the students. A PhD means research and publishing, MAK being ranked at 53 out of 100 meant that research and publishing is at a low ebb compared to Dar es Salam and Nairobi universities.

Gaging on the famous graduates who have passed through MAK, Dar es Salam and Nairobi can't compete, but in my study i singled out the Faculty of Technology from the 3 major universities of the region.

The department of Mechanical Engineering at Nairobi the teaching staff is composed of 3 full professors, 5 Senior & assistant lecturers with PhDs and 6 Assistant lecturers with Masters.
Department of Mechanical Engineering at Makerere the teaching staff 0(zero) professors 7 Senior & assistant lecturers with PhDs, 3 Assistant lecturers with Masters and 2 Teaching assistants with BSc.
Faculty of Mechanical and Chemical Engineering Dar es Salam University teaching staff 11 Professors 35 Senior & assistant lecturers with PhDs, 17 Assistant lecturers with Masters

It is evident something has to be fixed at least a department has to be with an experienced full professor, in developed countries to qualify for a teaching assistant position one has to be a PhD student, getting a first class at bachelors doesn't guarantee you to take your peers for tutorials, what if you passed your exams by cramming?, if the university is to produce quality graduates in technology a Masters should be a perquisite for a teaching assistant's job.

From the available information online When it comes to quality academics in Mechanical Engineering it's evident that Dar es Salam has a strong teaching staff, followed by Nairobi and then Makerere last. I think this can be overturned with the sudden expansion of the Faculty of Technology.

Still on the quality of engineers rolled out by the above 3 universities in the region, it's evident that Makerere has few specialised courses in the field of Mechanical engineering compared to it's competitors in the region, and the research fields of the teaching staff are more diverse and beneficial to the economy at Dar es Salam and Nairobi than at Makerere where almost all the teaching staff have "Sustainable energy" as their research fields. Research at Nairobi is published, both the past and current projects and their fields of specialisation in terms of research are almost the same compared to other departments of mechanical Engineering allover the world.

Lack of materials used in pedagogy also limits the performing of the university, with all the ICT gadgets we have it's a must for the departments to be with projectors and other accessories. Web publication should be emphasized, lecturers should be with personal web pages with functional emails to ease communication between a student and the lecturer, and also to post/publish study materials for the respective courses online.

Thank God James Watson had to resign and swallow his own words after claiming that African DNA is inferior, with all the hardships and quality of education we have, African scholars have managed to beat the white's on their on turf in matters regarding education by excelling in postgraduate degrees overseas.

Presently Internet was cut off at the famous Makerere hill because of 600m Ugshs. areas from the Internet Service Providers, and it's coming to a month the problem hasn't been fixed, in developed countries when Internet is off at a University everything stalls, students can't study well, registration of students can't be done, students data can't be accessed etc. MAK has to embrace the dot com era, has to digitize almost all process at the ivory tower, student have to be registered electronically, marks have to be stored electronically, we are in the age of ICT, mak has to wake up!

Ever since the Chancellor stepped down, the place has been vacant, despite the fact candidates were shortlisted, interviewed and 2 names were sent to the President to name the new Chancellor, but now months have passed the university has no chancellor.

We may refute webometrics rankings, but the problem is still evident that MAK is sinking academically and it has lost it's past glory yet universities like Harvard, University College London have maintained their position at the top, newcomers like Dar es Salam, Nairobi and may be Kigali are gonna pass MAK unless there's an overhaul.

Personally I would suggest all the Engineering Programs to be sent to Kyambogo, the government with the help of donor money develop a new Faculty of Technology at Kyambogo and transfer there all the engineering programs. The Undergraduate courses in Arts also to be transferred to Kyambogo such that congestion is eased at Makerere, and it will be more of a graduate school of Natural sciences, social sciences and Medical undergraduate and graduate courses. Recruit new academics, ensure quality research and publication etc.

Mak has lost the goal why it was formed, wrangles between MUBS an affiliated college bring more harm than good. MAK has to learn to work with MUBS, the same applies to MUBS and it's administration have to understand that they are an affiliated college. Let's take lessons from University College London it has a lot of affiliated colleges which are doing well academically.

I conclude by saying action is needed at Makerere to overturn the events, the new chancellor should look to elevate the once known Harvard of Africa, the Uganda government should increase it's funding to the education sector.

Amazing passenger airplanes

peregrine — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 09:58:00 GMT

CONCORDE B787 DREAMLINER B747

The airplanes you should fly in this era and the ones you missed!!

Concorde---- A high tech supersonic ( faster than the speed of sound 340 meters per second) airplane formely flew by BA and Air France

B747------- Folks you gotta feel this plane take off, climb, cruise..., descend, approach and finally land it's worth a try

B787 Dreamliner----- The latest high tech composite airplane first of it's kind. The first African airliner to fly it will be Ethiopian airlines in 2008, then Kenya airways in 2010.