In Uganda, university teachers are recruited on the strength of their class of degree rather than pedagogical content knowledge and skill. Given the frequent changes in technology with resultant paradigm shifts from teacher to learner-centered education and competence-based approaches, increasing demand of accountability from society, and demand for quality, among others, university teaching can no longer be left to subject expertise alone. Effective teaching and quality graduates requires university teachers to possess a combination of content and pedagogical knowledge. Using data collected through an interview guide and end-of-workshop evaluation questionnaire for a four-year training period (2006 -2010), this article focused on the lessons learnt from a series of pedagogical training workshops offered by Makerere University management to her teaching staff. Findings show that the main training needs among the teaching staff include assessment and grading of students, managing large classes, and using ICT in teaching and learning. Overall, the staff appreciated the workshop methodology, the coteaching approach and the sharing of experiences. However, there were concerns about the timing of the trainings and inability to implement what is learned due to institutional constraints. The study underpins the importance of undertaking needs assessment before designing any staff training program. Rather than claim that addressing individual training needs will improve quality, staff pedagogical training should be combined with institutional changes so that institutional constraints that hinder utilization of knowledge and skills acquired during training are concurrently addressed. In addition, training approaches should transcend the deficit model of continuous professional development commonly used to the use of a variety of models including the cascaded model. Through the cascade model the capacity of academic staff could be built, these would continue to learn from each other, thereby developing a critical mass at faculty or academic unit level.

This study investigated research supervision as a key factor in the progression of graduate students in the public higher institutions of learning in Uganda. A cross-sectional survey design was used to conduct the study. A total of 312 graduate students on masters' degree programs were randomly selected from 4 public institutions of higher learning. The study also included 20 research supervisors who were conveniently selected and 4 purposively selected graduate school heads. A self-administered structured questionnaire was used to collect the data from the students. The supervisors and research school heads were interviewed. The ordered logistic regression and content analysis methods of data analysis were used to establish the contribution of research supervision to the graduate students’ progression. The findings revealed that the supervisor-supervisee relationship, supervisor guidance and feedback are significant antecedents of the graduate students’ progression. The study thus concluded that public institutions of higher learning institute mechanisms that address the supervisor-supervisee relationship, supervisor guidance and the promptness of any feedback in order to enhance the students’ progression. The study recommends that public institutions of higher learning institute i) annual training programs that focus on promoting a good relationship between supervisors and supervisees, ii) regular research seminars that bring together the supervisors and supervisees and iii) regular meetings between the administration, research supervisors and supervisees in order to review the students’ progress. The institutions should also emphasize adherence to the policy of giving feedback on the students’ research work within set time frames.

Postgraduate research supervision and its impact on students’ completion of postgraduate studies continue to pose significant challenges to higher education managers, postgraduate students, university dons, funders of postgraduate education, and all stake holders. This literature review based article summaries the research findings across six dimensions of postgraduate research supervision: Student-supervisor relationship, Gender and research supervision, Allocating and matching students with supervisors, Pedagogy of research supervision, Roles and responsibilities of postgraduate students and supervisors and Effective supervision. Student- supervisor relationship is noted to have direct and indirect influence on all other dimensions of research supervision and consequently to timely students’ completion of postgraduate studies. It was found out that the reaction and impact of the other six dimensions would be driven by the student-supervisor relationship.  Students perceived that good working relationships with their research supervisors have an impact on their research progress. Studies concerning gender and research supervision are limited but the few available indicated that female candidates were largely affected in their progress due to gender-related challenges. It was revealed that effective supervision has a positive impact on timely students’ completion of postgraduate studies. Implications for postgraduate students and supervisors, schools, faculties, and departments of postgraduate education were identified.

With the urge to Africanise the curriculum following colonisation, many African countries are still wary of the educational initiatives from the developed countries. However, with the clear curriculum design and development guidelines provided by various national Quality Assurance bodies, African countries need not fear migrating curricula from developed countries. Drawing from the workshop experiences, authors of this paper illustrate the steps involved in migrating, contextualising and adapting a professional field of study in a multi-institutional partnership, with particular focus on the competence-based curriculum design and development process. The process of migrating higher education (HE) Administration, Leadership and Management curriculum taught at the University of Tampere (Finland) to a Postgraduate Diploma in Higher Education Leadership and Management (PGDHELM) curriculum at Uganda Management Institute (UMI) in partnership with the Makerere University and the University of Helsinki involved undertaking a needs assessment, training of trainers and adapting the programme to the UMI context. The training of trainers provided opportunity for the trainees to reflect and generate information on the status of HE leadership and management in Uganda. The curriculum was institutionalised by aligning it to the vision, mission and profile of UMI in the context of the existing internal and external Quality Assurance frameworks. This paper underscores the importance of involving stakeholders, taking into account national and institutional requirements in all the steps when migrating an academic curriculum.

One of the challenges facing higher education institutions in general and Uganda in particular, is the widening gulf between increased use of technology for teaching and learning and achieving meaningful learning outcomes, especially in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we report on one use of technology where a teacher's integration of YouTube videos in teaching increased students' levels of interaction with the content of the video, with peers and with the instructor (teacher). Guided by the sequential mixed-method design, a series of online learning activities were designed and matched with a carefully selected YouTube video. The activity was piloted and refined for use on purposefully selected teaching staff. The staff watched the videos that were uploaded on the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) and responded to online learning tasks at individual and group levels. The VLE served as a knowledge sharing space for reflections. The paper concludes that lesson design was critical in enriching the VLE with carefully selected YouTube videos. Our key recommendations are: focus on the learning outcomes, design for the desired interactions, build into the task reflections, and decide whether to pre-select YouTube videos for students or to allow students to find appropriate YouTube videos; use reflections and knowledge sharing spaces. Further work has built reflective questions in the video which allows student to pause and reflect.