Communication Our Ref: AGNMU/COM/10/2026 Date: 21 October 2026 The Rt Hon. Thomas Tayebwa Deputy Speaker of Parliament of the Republic of Uganda. Dear Rt Hon. Deputy Speaker, Re: Remarks on the nursing qualification and the leadership of academic departments We write on behalf of the nurses and midwives of Uganda, among them are certificate, diploma, degree, master’s and doctoral-level members of AGNMU, to express our deep concern over your remarks in the House on 20/10/2026. In the course of the debate on the leadership of the Department of Pharmacy at Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST), the nursing qualification was described as too low to lead a department. We hold the Office of the Deputy Speaker in high regard. It is precisely because Parliament is the guardian of the dignity of all Ugandans, and because members of the public take their cue from the Chair, that these words have wounded a profession of more than a hundred thousand women and men who serve at every level of our health system. We write respectfully, with facts, and in the hope that the record can be set right. To be clear, AGNMU takes no position on the question now before the House: how the mandates of the Pharmaceutical Society of Uganda and the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) relate to each other. That is for the Minister, the Attorney General and Parliament. Our concern is the generalisation made about nurses Nursing in Uganda is not a low-level qualification; the ladder runs to PhD. The Schemes of Service for the Nursing and Midwifery Cadre, issued by the Ministry of Public Service (December 2017), set out a professional pathway from certificate to doctorate: Education levels recognised in the scheme: certificate, diploma, advanced/higher diploma, Bachelor of Science in Nursing or Midwifery, postgraduate diploma, and Master’s degrees in some nineteen specialities, including critical care, oncology, trauma and emergency, public health nursing, neonatal nursing, and nursing and health professions education. PhD as a stated expectation: the Scheme itself says that a nurse or midwife is expected to grow professionally through upgrading to bachelor’s, master’s and PhD degrees, research and publication, and continuous professional development (Section 2.4). Leadership posts demand postgraduate training: the post of Commissioner, Nursing and Midwifery Services (salary scale U1SE) requires a Bachelor’s degree, a Master’s degree, a postgraduate qualification in administration, management or health services management, twelve years’ relevant experience (three at Assistant Commissioner level) and a valid practising licence from the Uganda Nurses and Midwives Council. Assistant Commissioner posts carry similar degree and postgraduate requirements. Degree-level nursing education in Uganda began in 1993, when Makerere University started the country’s first-degree nursing programme. At the programme’s twentieth anniversary, the then Principal of the Makerere University College of Health Sciences, Prof. Nelson Sewankambo, recalled that fewer than 10 nurses held degrees when it started, and welcomed the fact that nurses had since progressed through master’s level to PhD. The qualification Parliament is being asked to treat as “low” is therefore one the Government of Uganda has itself graded, funded and structured as a graduate and postgraduate profession. Ugandan nurses hold doctorates and lead universities This is not theory. Examples in the public record include: Clarke International University (CIU), Kampala. Its Vice Chancellor since July 2017, Prof. Rose Clarke Nanyonga, is a nurse by profession. She holds a BSN and PhD in Nursing. She is now an Associate Professor. CIU grew out of the International Hospital Kampala School of Nursing, its first faculty, and today holds NCHE programme accreditations well beyond nursing: nursing and midwifery degrees, a postgraduate diploma in critical care nursing, health informatics, accounting and finance, information technology, social work, project management and PhD programmes in other fields. A university under nurse leadership therefore governs graduate programmes across several disciplines. Makerere University. The Department of Nursing, which pioneered degree-level nursing in Uganda, is headed by an Associate Professor of Nursing, Dr Tom Denis Ngabirano, and offers accredited Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes, with further master’s programmes in paediatric, critical care and oncology nursing in preparation. Kabale University. Dr Agnes Kasede Napyo, a nurse with a BSc in Nursing (Makerere), and a PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Medicine and has supervised PhD, master’s and undergraduate students to completion. MUST itself. According to the University’s Vice Chancellor, the officer who held the acting headship of the Department of Pharmacy is a Senior Lecturer who holds a PhD in Pharmacology, with a nursing background, a research record in clinical trials and pharmaco-epidemiology, and about fifteen years of interventional study experience. Press reports indicate she has also helped to train MUST pharmacy students for over a decade. By any academic measure, this is not a “low” qualification. These examples are not exhaustive; they are the ones that can be verified from public sources. We are ready to supply a fuller register of Ugandan nurses and midwives at doctoral and professorial level. The law does not tie headship of a department to a particular profession. The Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act, 2001 (as amended) sets the test for leading an academic department in a public university, and the test is academic standing, not professional cadre: Section 54(1) and (3): the Head of Department is elected by the academic staff of the department, and the minimum requirement for election is the rank of Senior Lecturer. Sections 53 and 49: Deans and Directors are elected by their academic staff from among senior academics, and departments are organised by courses of study as determined by the University Council on the Senate’s recommendation. Sections 3, 5(i) and 103(a): the Act’s stated purpose is to equate qualifications across institutions, and NCHE’s functions include ensuring minimum standards and the equivalence of degrees. Accredited awards are to be treated as of comparable and equivalent merit. Sections 119 and 123(2)(e): qualifications for teaching staff are set by NCHE standards, and NCHE’s own mandate is accreditation of programmes. Sections 28 and 121: admission, training and assessment are to be on merit. A nurse who holds a doctorate, the rank of Senior Lecturer or above, and with the confidence of the department’s academic staff meets the statutory test that Parliament itself enacted. If Parliament believes that headship of a department should additionally require the registration of a particular professional body, that is a matter for amending the law, and not a reason to describe an entire profession as under-qualified. (We note that the copy of the Act available to us is the 2001 Act as amended in 2003 and 2006, and we invite the Attorney General to confirm the current text.) This is not the first time nurses and other health professionals have raised the matter of being locked out of leadership because of their cadre: Ruling of a legal case filed by Allied Health Professions vs Attorney General by the Equal Opportunities Commission objected to any kind of discrimination against cadre in any leadership position. The Kenyan precedent. The petition points to Kenya, where nurses, pharmacists and clinical officers went to court and won. The Kenya National Union of Nurses has since cited the High Court decision in Petition No. 85 of 2018, which found a provision purporting to bar nurses from administrative positions in health institutions to be discriminatory and unconstitutional. We commend that reasoning to the House as persuasive authority, mindful of Article 21 of our own Constitution, which guarantees equality before the law and freedom from discrimination, including on grounds of social or economic standing. International practice. The petition also notes that the leaders of the World Health Organisation, UNICEF and UNAIDS are not medical doctors by training, which shows that health leadership is determined by competence and not by a single clinical cadre. When a remark from the Chair of the House echoes the very assumption that these complaints challenge, nurses reasonably fear it will be read as endorsement. Nurses and midwives are the largest part of the health workforce. They staff Health Centres II to IV, lead immunisation drives, manage maternity wards and run outbreak responses. A public statement that their qualification is too low to lead lowers the morale of a workforce already under strain, discourages young people from joining, and discourages serving nurses from investing in the master’s and doctoral degrees that the Scheme of Service asks them to pursue. In the spirit of respectful engagement, AGNMU requests that the Rt Hon. Deputy Speaker: -Clarify and withdraw, on the floor of the House, the remark that the nursing qualification is too low to lead a department, and affirm that Parliament recognises nurses and midwives as graduate and postgraduate professionals. -Grant AGNMU an audience at your earliest convenience, so that we can present the evidence set out above and a register of doctoral-level nurses and midwives. -Ensure that the statement by the Minister of Education and Sports and the guidance of the Attorney General, due before the House on Thursday 22 October 2026, address the headship of academic departments in line with sections 53 and 54 of the Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act, and that the Uganda Nurses and Midwives Council and nurse-leaders in academia are consulted. -Support a review of the rules governing the leadership of health institutions, so that appointments are made on merit, academic standing and management training and not on cadre. -We remain available for dialogue and trust that you will receive this letter in the spirit in which it is written: not as an attack on the Chair, but as an appeal from a profession that has given Uganda its mothers’ safe deliveries, its children’s vaccinations and its front-line response in every epidemic, asking only to be judged on its record and its qualifications. Yours in service, Office of President Email: [email protected] Copied to: The Rt Hon. Speaker of Parliament Hon. Minister of Health Hon. Minister of Education and Sports Chairperson, Parliamentary Committee on Health Executive Director, National Council for Higher Education Registrar, Uganda Nurses and Midwives Council Chairperson, Equal Opportunities Commission @Thomas_Tayebwa @Parliament_Ug @MinofHealthUG @CHRISBARYOMUNS1 @nche_uganda @UNMC_Ug @EOC_UG

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