A Ranking Tax in Uganda

The obsession with university rankings is now spreading in Africa. Makerere University in Uganda is concerned about its low position in the rankings (evidently those produced by Webometrics since it does not have any sort of position in the others). It is therefore imposing a levy of 50-80,000 Ugandan shillings a year on students (not, it seems, on faculty or administrators) to improve ICT at the university and therefore boost Makerere's position in the rankings.

"MAKERERE University will charge an ICT fee for both private and government-sponsored students.

Each undergraduate will have to pay sh50,000 and post-graduates will pay sh80,000 per academic year.

The decision was taken in a meeting held last week, according to the university senior public relations officer, Gilbert Kadilo.

He said the money would be used to boost the university's Information and Communication Technology (ICT) programme.

"The university is moving towards internationalising its academic programmes and this requires investment in ICT," Kadilo explained yesterday.

He added that the policy was aimed at facilitating the publication of university research on the internet so as to improve the international ranking of the university."

Even if this works, one wonders whether it would be worth it. Wouldn't a fee to buy books and journals for the university library be a better idea?