JB

Dear Agaba, Let me ask you a simple question. Where do you think the next great Ugandan pharmacist is sitting right now? Probably in a crowded classroom somewhere, waiting for a chance that some people are quietly trying to take away. I want to talk to you about that, because it matters more than most people realise. Here is the contradiction we are living with. Government is telling every young Ugandan to study science. The President says it. The Ministry says it. The ATMS agenda says it, with science, technology and innovation placed at the centre as the engine that drives agriculture, tourism and minerals. The message is clear: Uganda needs more scientists, not fewer. And yet, at the very same time, PSU is working to cap how many pharmacists we are allowed to train. One hand is opening the door and the other is pushing it shut. Think about what that cap really says. It says a Ugandan child should only be trained for the number of jobs we can count in Uganda today, as if that child was created for this country alone. But a pharmacist is a global professional. The same qualification that lets you run a dispensary in Mbarara can open a hospital pharmacy in Nairobi, a research lab in Toronto or a regulatory office in Geneva. Our graduates can go out, earn, learn, send money home and come back wiser. That exposure is how a country builds a rich world view. We cannot lead others if we cannot even help ourselves, and we certainly cannot help ourselves by deliberately producing fewer of the people we are short of. Now let me tell you about something that many people usually don’t about: education tourism. We are proud of our gorillas, and we should be. But a gorilla tourist comes for a week. A student comes for four or five years. Think of thousands of young people from Kenya, Tanzania, South Sudan, Congo, Nigeria, India and beyond choosing Uganda for their degrees. Every one of them rents a room, buys food, uses transport, pays fees, visits the lake on weekends and brings parents to graduation. That is money flowing into our economy every single month, and it supports landlords, traders, drivers and the Government's own revenue. Countries like Malaysia, Ghana and South Africa understood this long ago. Pharmacy is one of the courses that attracts exactly such students. When PSU limits enrolment, it is not just limiting a university. It is cutting off an income stream for Uganda. That is counterproductive, and I will say it plainly, it is unpatriotic. So what is really going on? Gatekeeping. Fear of competition. The old instinct to keep the profession small so that the few already inside remain comfortable. I understand the instinct, but it is poison for a developing nation. No country ever grew by training fewer doctors, fewer engineers or fewer pharmacists. The countries that rose did the opposite. They trained in abundance, built quality into the training, and let the world absorb the rest. We can think better than this. We can promote science and grow education tourism at the same time. We can raise standards without shrinking numbers. For once, let us put country first in everything we do. Uganda needs many pharmacists and many other scientists, and they must be trained, not rationed. Victoria University is stepping forward to do its part. We are ready to train, to invest and to be held to the highest quality. We now ask the professional bodies to do theirs: to be partners in growth rather than guards at the gate. Uganda is our country. We owe it to this nation to do the things that build it, not the things that hold it back. I would be glad to sit down with you and talk this through further. Warm regards, Prof. Lawrence Muganga
Vice Chancellor, Victoria University