Browsing by Author "Nabaho, Lazarus"

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Academics’ perceptions of good teaching: Assessing the degree of parity with student evaluation of teaching questionnaires
(Africa Education Review, 2018) Nabaho, Lazarus; Oonyu, Joseph; Aguti, Jessica N.
There is a dearth of studies on academics’ perceptions of good teaching in transitional economies such as Uganda and the degree of parity between academics’ conceptions of good teaching and the items in the student evaluation of teaching (SET) questionnaires. Against this backdrop, the article reports on a study that explored how academics at Makerere University, Uganda, perceive good teaching and compared the resultant perceptions with the items in the SET questionnaires. The study employed a qualitative approach and data was collected by using semi-structured interviews and reviewing documents. Thematic analysis was employed to analyse the data from the interviews while the data from the documents was analysed using content analysis. The findings showed that academics perceive good teaching as: being knowledgeable; being student-centred; demonstrating good communication skills; undertaking research-based teaching; demonstrating professionalism; being approachable; and being organised. Finally, the findings demonstrated a convergence between academics’ perceptions of good teaching and most of the items in the SET questionnaires
Battling Academic Corruption in Higher Education: Does External Quality Assurance Offer a Ray of Hope
(Higher Learning Research Communications, 2019-06-17) Nabaho, Lazarus; Turyasingura, Wilberforce
The post-1980s changes in the global higher education landscape have triggered a burgeoning of incidents of academic corruption in higher education institutions. Since 2000, the discourse on how to combat academic corruption has gained traction in higher education and quality assurance is advanced as one of the strategies for fighting corruption in higher education. In 2016, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation) issued a “wakeup call” to quality assurance systems to take up a leading role in the battle against academic corruption in view of the massive societal risks associated with the vice. However, there is a dearth of empirical and conceptual studies on how the quality assurance systems, in general, and external quality assurance systems, in particular, can take up a leading role in the crusade against academic corruption. This conceptual article, using the crime– punishment model as an analytical lens, discusses how the national quality assurance agencies (and systems) can exercise the leadership role in combating academic corruption. The article advances the setting of academic integrity standards, institutional and program accreditation, accreditation of academic journals, sharing information and promoting whistleblowing, monitoring of institutions, applying sanctions, and ranking of higher education institutions on the basis of integrity indicators as options that are available to quality assurance agencies to exercise their leadership role in combating academic corruption. These approaches are likely to create both incentives and disincentives for the higher education institutions and staff in connection with engaging in academic corruption. Nevertheless, the article takes cognizance of the idea that external quality assurance is necessary but not sufficient in combating corruption at the academy level.
Driving up standards: civil service management and decentralization: Case study of Uganda
(Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance, 2012-12) Nabaho, Lazarus
There is a consensus that decentralization by devolution leads to improved service delivery, but debate on the appropriate type of personnel arrangements for delivering decentralized services is far from over. Put differently, the discourse on whether civil service management should be decentralized or devolved still rages on. Little wonder that countries which started off with decentralized civil service management models in the 1990s are currently centralizing some aspects of personnel management while others are having centralized and decentralized personnel arrangements operating side by side in sub-national governments. The paper argues that civil service management should be decentralized whenever a country chooses the path of decentralization by devolution. Using Uganda’s example, the paper highlights two major challenges of managing the civil service under separate personnel arrangements: civil service appointments devoid of merit, and the perennial failure to attract and retain qualified human resource. The paper presents proposals on how to ensure meritocracy in appointments and how to bolster attraction and retention of human capital in local governments.
An exploration of the ‘African (Union Commission’s) perspective’ of quality and quality assurance in higher education: Latent voices in the African Quality Rating Mechanism (AQRM)
(Tuning Journal for Higher Education, 2019-04-19) Nabaho, Lazarus; Turyasingura, Wilberforce
Quality assurance of African higher education is at the top of the region’s development agenda. Prompted by the imperative to enhance the quality of higher education, the Africa Union Commission is implementing the African Quality Rating Mechanism (AQRM). The AQRM is a continental tool that affords higher education institutions an opportunity to conduct self-assessment and compare their performance against similar institutions based on a set of common criteria. The mechanism is envisaged to engender institutional cultures of quality and enhance the quality of African higher education. However, a dearth of knowledge exists about the latent notions of quality in higher education that the AQRM aims to assure and the implicit institutional-level quality assurance practices in the AQRM. Therefore, this interpretivist article, based on a review of the AQRM survey questionnaire, answered the following research question: What notions of quality in higher education and the institutional-level quality assurance practices are inherent in the quality standards of the AQRM survey questionnaire? The findings revealed that quality as fitness for purpose and exceptional are the notions of quality in higher education in the AQRM. Nevertheless, fitness for purpose is the dominant notion of quality and this symbolises an imperative to re-direct higher education to serve social and economic ends. Distinguished (excellent) teacher awards, applied research excellence awards, staff professional development, tracer studies, external examination, and the involvement of key external stakeholders in programme development are the latent institutional-level quality assurance practices in the AQRM. These quality assurance practices are in sync with the notions of quality and aim at bridging the gap between the academy and the labour market. Methodologically, the AQRM survey questionnaire is devoid of benchmarks to inform the rating, and quality assurance practices such as student evaluation of teaching, peer observation of teaching and moderation of examination items are unnoticeable in the survey questionnaire.
Good teaching: Aligning student and administrator perceptions and expectations
(Higher Learning Research Communications, 2017-06) Nabaho, Lazarus; Oonyu, Joseph; Aguti, Jessica N.
Extant literature attests to limited systematic inquiry into students’ perceptions of good teaching in higher education. Consequently, there have been calls for engaging students in construing what makes good university teaching. This interpretivist study investigated final year undergraduate students’ perceptions of good teaching at Makerere University in Uganda. Results suggested that students conceived good teachers as being student centered, demonstrating strong subject and pedagogical knowledge, being approachable, being responsive, being organized, and being able to communicate well. Most perceptions of good teaching by students depend on what the teacher does (the means) rather than affording high quality student learning (an end). The findings further demonstrate a troubling gap between students’ perceptions of good teaching and the items in the university’s student evaluation of teaching. We recommend ensuring congruence between perceptions of good teaching by the students and the items listed in Makerere University’s student evaluation of teaching.
Human resource management in local governments: An analysis of recruitment and selection practices in Uganda
(The Journal of African & Asian Local Government Studies, 2013) Nabaho, Lazarus; Kiiza, Alfred
The transfer of staff hiring and firing decisions from the central government to the district local governments through the District Service Commissions (DSCs) is considered to be one of the cornerstones of the Ugandan decentralization reforms. Architects of Uganda's decentralization policy opted for a separate personnel system because it increases responsiveness, enhances accountability of civil servants to elected leaders, and overcomes the challenge of dual allegiance by civil servants to central and local government masters. However, the decentralization of civil service management has come along with unintended or perverse effects. One such effect is sacrificing merit by the DSCs during recruitment and selection processes. In this paper, we argue that the legal framework for appointing the DSC and the defacto local eligibility criteria for appointment to the DSC; the size and ethnic composition of district local governments; and the tendency to associate districts with employment for indigenous are some of the key obstacles to merit-based recruitment and selection in local governments in Uganda.
Making sense of an elusive concept: Academics’ perspectives of quality in higher education
(Higher Learning Research Communications, 2017-11) Nabaho, Lazarus; Aguti, Jessica N.; Oonyu, Joseph
Objective: Since the 1990s studies on how stakeholders in higher education perceive quality have burgeoned. Nevertheless, the majority of studies on perception of quality in higher education focus on students and employers. The few studies on academics’ perceptions of quality in higher education treat academics as a homogeneous group and, therefore, do not point out cross disciplinary perspectives in perceptions of quality. This article explores how academics across six disciplines perceive quality in higher education. Method: The article is anchored in the interpretivist paradigm. Data was collected from 14 purposely selected academics at Makerere University in Uganda and analyzed using thematic analysis. Results: The findings show that academics perceive quality in higher education as transformation, fitness for purpose, and exceptional. The findings further demonstrate that a stakeholder group or an individual stakeholder can subscribe to a notion of quality in higher education but voice divergent views on its variants. Similarly, the academic discipline, the perceived purpose of higher education, and the problems within a higher education system have an influence on stakeholders’ conception of quality in higher education. Conclusions: From the findings it can be inferred that quality in higher education defies a single definition and that stakeholders’ perceptions of quality do not take place in a vacuum. Implication for Theory and/or Practice: The multidimensional nature of quality and the contestations around it necessitate a multidimensional approach to assuring and assessing it.
Recentralization of local government Chief Administrative Officers appointments in Uganda: Implications for downward accountability
(Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance, 2013-11) Nabaho, Lazarus
The Uganda Constitution of 1995 spelt out the principle of decentralization by devolution. Accordingly, from 1995 to 2005, district local governments had a dejure mandate to hire and fire all categories of civil servants through their respective district service commissions (DSCs). Following the Constitutional amendment in September 2005, the right to hire and fire district chief administrative officers (CAOs) reverted to central government. Critics of recentralization of CAO appointments contend that the shift in the policy and legislation for managing CAOs runs contrary to the principles of decentralization by devolution. This paper argues that recentralization of CAOs has confused reporting, reduced the autonomy of sub-national governments in civil service management, undermined accountability of CAOs to elected councils, and shifted the loyalty of CAOs from local governments with and for which they work to central government that appoints and deploys them. To deepen accountability in local governments, the paper advocates for decentralization of CAO appointments, but for participation of central government in recruitment of CAOs within the confines of a separate personnel system. It further calls for a rethinking of the current call by the 9th Parliament to recentralize human resource in health in local governments owing to accountability challenges of managing the civil service in sub-national governments under an integrated personnel system.
Shared governance in public universities in Uganda: Current concerns and directions for reform
(International Journal of African Higher Education, 2018) Nabaho, Lazarus
This article focuses on Makerere University and Kyambogo University to highlight stakeholders’ concerns pertaining to the shared governance framework for public universities in Uganda. It is anchored in the interpretivist lens and the data was derived from three state-sponsored reports on the two public universities. The secondary data were analysed using content analysis. The findings demonstrate that the size, composition, authority and effectiveness of the university council and the Senate and the mode through which leaders assume office, are the salient governance concerns in the two universities. The results further show that stakeholders’ concerns regarding the current shared governance framework for public universities relate to the substance of the framework rather than its form or the framework itself. This suggests that the governance framework comprising the university council, the university senate and the administration is fit for purpose and in sync with the nature of the academy. Arguably, these governance organs (and the nature of their work) set a university apart from other organisations. Finally, without being prescriptive, the article sketches options for reform.
Using a performance measurement framework to overcome the odds against performance management in the public sector
(African Journal of Public Affairs, 2011) Nabaho, Lazarus
The importance of measuring the efficiency and effectiveness of governmental programmes features prominently in almost every discourse related to programme monitoring and evaluation. Phrases like ‘what gets measured gets done and if you cannot measure it you cannot manage it’ attest to the significance attached to measuring the efficiency and effectiveness of governmental programmes. Despite the apparent appreciation of the benefit of performance measurement, how to measure the performance of governmental programmes continues to elude academics and practitioners of public management. This article, informed by available literature on performance measurement in the public sector and the New Public Management paradigm, contends that measuring the efficiency and effectiveness of governmental programmes requires development of a performance measurement framework or logical model consisting of outcomes, outputs, activities and inputs for the programme. Performance indicators, that specify what to measure, should consequently be developed for each component in the results framework. Since performance measurement hinges upon availability of timely and reliable information, identification of the sources of information on performance indicators; determination of the methods and frequency of data collection; and assignment of the responsibility for data collection are stressed in discussion.