In his latest academic opinion, Victoria University Vice-Chancellor Prof. Lawrence Muganga challenges restrictions on pharmacy student enrolment, arguing that Uganda needs to expand opportunities for young people rather than limit access to professional training.
He says pharmacy education is not just about producing professionals for Uganda’s current job market but also about positioning the country as a regional education hub, attracting international students, generating foreign exchange and strengthening its human resource base.
Muganga further questions whether restrictions on pharmacy training are genuinely driven by concerns about academic quality or could also protect existing professional interests at the expense of young people’s opportunities.
He maintains that quality should be guaranteed through proper inspections, qualified lecturers, well-equipped laboratories and fair regulation, rather than limiting student numbers. He calls for universities that meet the required standards to be allowed to train more pharmacists, insisting that Uganda’s future depends on investing in talent, science and education.
Why waste your precious time? read Prof. Lawrence Muganga’s full opinion below.
By Prof. Lawrence Muganga
Imagine a girl from Mbale. She loves science. She works hard and gets top marks in chemistry and biology. All her life, her teachers and her leaders have told her the same thing: Uganda needs scientists. So, she applies to study pharmacy. Then she is told there is no space for her, not because she is not clever enough; not because the university cannot teach her, but because someone has decided that Uganda already has enough pharmacists.
That is what the argument over pharmacy training at Mbarara University of Science and Technology is really about. It may look like a fight about student numbers and rules. But underneath, it asks a bigger question. Do we want a Uganda that grows talent or a Uganda that holds it back?
A Student Is An Asset
Let me begin with the part of this story that almost nobody talks about; it may be the part that matters most for our economy. Uganda works hard to bring tourists here. We invite the world to see our gorillas, the source of the Nile, our parks and our culture. That is a good thing. A tourist comes, enjoys Uganda, spends money for a week and flies home.
Now think about a student who comes from Nairobi, Kigali, Juba or Lagos to study pharmacy in Uganda. She does not stay one week. She stays four or five years, pays school fees, rents a room, eats at local restaurants, rides local taxis and shops in our local markets. When her family visits for her graduation, they book hotels. Her money does not leave after a weekend. It flows through our towns month after month, year after year.
Now imagine thousands of students like her. That is not a small thing; that is an industry. We call this education tourism and it is one of the best ways a country can earn foreign money. It never runs out. It spreads to many towns, not just a few hotels. And it leaves behind something ordinary tourism cannot: former students who love Uganda and talk about it for the rest of their lives.
Two Mixed Messages
For years, the message from our leaders has been clear. Study science. Learn technology. Become the people who will build this economy. It is in our national plans. It is in the President’s speeches. It is in the advice given in every secondary school.
So, what are we telling young people, at the same time, we try to limit how many of them can train as pharmacists? We are telling them the invitation was not real. We are telling them science is for only a few. We are telling them to go somewhere else.
The right question is not how to train fewer pharmacists. The right question is how to train many more of them, and train them very well. Those two things can happen together.
A Global Job Market
People who want to limit training often give one reason: We should only train as many pharmacists as there are jobs in Uganda today. It sounds careful. But, it is an old way of thinking.
A pharmacy degree from Kampala or Mbarara does not stop working at the border. Ugandan pharmacists work in hospitals, drug factories, research labs, government offices and big international companies, across East Africa and far beyond. Many work abroad and send money home to feed their families and build houses. Later, many come back with new skills and new friends who help our health system grow. Others stay here and become the backbone of the medicine factories we keep saying we want to build.
If we only train for the jobs we can see today, we are mixing up a budget with a future. Education has never been about filling the jobs that exist right now. It is a bet on what a country can become.
A Question Nobody Wants To Ask
There is a question here that must be asked out loud, because everyone is already thinking it: Are these limits really about quality? Or are they about protecting those already in the profession from competition?
I want to be fair. Professional bodies do important work. They protect standards. They protect patients. They give the public a reason to trust the person behind the pharmacy counter. We need them. But, protecting standards and blocking opportunity are two different things. We must not let one hide behind the other. Quality comes from strict inspections, good teachers, proper labs, enough hospital placements and regulators who apply the rules fairly to everyone. Quality does not come from deciding in advance how many young people are allowed to try.
If a university meets the standard, let it train. If it does not, say so clearly and make it fix the problem. That is how rules protect the public. Counting heads does not.
No Country Grew Strong By Producing Less
History is very clear on this. Not one country that we now call a leader in science, technology or medicine got there by training fewer professionals. They did the opposite; they opened the doors wide, built more schools and labs and trusted their young people to find their way. They understood that people are not a cost to be controlled. People are the greatest asset a country has.
Uganda should want the same thing. Our population is young and growing fast. Our health needs are getting more complex. We are told again and again that we must make our own medicines, run our own research and protect our own patients. Every one of those goals needs pharmacists and far more than we have today.
Global Outlook
Uganda does not need fewer pharmacists. It needs more pharmacists, more scientists, more students from abroad, and more open doors for talented young people to walk through.
Courses like pharmacy can make Uganda the place where East Africa comes to study. Any rule that closes the door to these courses is not just a school decision. It is a money decision for the whole country.
But let us be clear about who gains the most. It is Uganda. The fees are paid here. The rent is paid here. The reputation is built here. The graduates who stay make our hospitals and factories stronger. The ones who leave send money home and return wiser. The ones who came from abroad tell everyone they meet that Uganda is the place to go for a good education. Every one of those outcomes puts Uganda first.
A Simple Way Forward
Universities that meet the standard should be allowed to train pharmacists in numbers that match what they can handle. Regulators should inspect carefully, apply the rules fairly and tell the public what they find. Competition between universities should be welcomed, because competition makes everyone better. And no capable young Ugandan should ever again be told that the door to science is closed because the room is full.
The argument at Mbarara is not about one university and one professional body. It is about whether Uganda is serious about the future it keeps describing. We say we want more scientists. We say we want to be the education centre of the region. We say we want education to earn money for the country. We cannot say all of that on Monday and then cut the pharmacy intake on Tuesday.
That is how countries build their people. That is how a classroom becomes a source of income for a nation. And that is how Uganda can turn science and education into engines that drive the whole country forward.
The girl from Mbale is waiting for an answer. Let us give her the right one.
The writer is the Vice-Chancellor of Victoria University, Kampala.