Appearing before the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee [PAC], the UR Deputy Vice Chancellor for Strategic Planning and Administration Dr Musafiri Papias Malimba explained that new measures put in place to check absenteeism include strengthened supervision and inspection of teaching staff.
“We have intensified inspections. If a lecturer absents from lecture, it taken as absconding from duties. Someone absenting in an office gets a punishment. So the same must be applied for a lecturer’s absence from attending to the learners in favour of private businesses,” he said adding disciplinary committees to enforce the sanctions are already in place.
He said the university punished 10 lecturers in 2018 over failure to lecture as time tabled.
Malimba explained that even a lecturer who conceals information about the absence of a fellow lecturer is punished by the provisions.
The crackdown saw four lecturers dismissed last year, four were temporarily suspended while two received warnings.
The issue of lecturers’ absenteeism was raised by MP Jean Claude Ntezimana noting that MPs visited the university and realized some lecturers had left to work for part time jobs.
“You find students in lecture rooms but have no lecturer because he/she went to give lecturers to other private institutions. You have to tell us the current situation of the transformational agenda on quality education,” he said.
The UR Vice Chancellor Prof. Philip Cotton, said resources have been mobilized to pay lecturers on time and improve their efficiency.
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