Busitema University has been quietly expanding its reach across eastern Uganda, establishing campuses in Namasagali, Pallisa, Mbale, and Arapai, and steadily increasing student enrolment year after year. On paper, the growth story looks impressive.
But behind the numbers, a more uncomfortable reality is emerging. The physical facilities, the staffing levels, and the resources needed to match that growth have not kept pace — and education stakeholders are now warning that unless something changes urgently, the university’s ambitions could be seriously undermined.
During a familiarisation tour of all Busitema University campuses, officials led by University Chancellor Prof Eng Badru Kiggundu and Vice Chancellor Mr Paul Wako came face to face with the gap between the university’s enrolment growth and its physical capacity.
Prof Willian Bazeyo, the University Council Chairperson, did not soften the assessment. “There is an urgent need for institutional development to improve academic excellence,” he said. “Most of these campuses are located in rural areas compounded with lack of accommodation for students and staff who may wish to rent out.”
Prof Bazeyo challenged the government to provide more resources to fast-track the university’s development and enable it to compete with other universities. He also appealed to private investors to establish or construct accommodation facilities that both staff and students could rent, describing the accommodation shortage as one of the most pressing operational challenges the institution faces.
He noted that current staffing levels sit at between 10 and 12 percent of what is required relative to student numbers — a figure he described as critically low.
Pallisa Campus: 600 Students, 26 Staff
The numbers at Pallisa Campus illustrate the problem starkly. The campus, established in 2014 with only a handful of students, has grown to 600 students pursuing different courses. It has 26 academic staff — of whom only 16 are full-time, with the remaining 17 being part-time lecturers.
Mr Abbey Kalenzi, the Faculty Dean at Pallisa, acknowledged progress — more academic programmes, more student numbers, more research and publications — but was candid about what still needs urgent attention. More lecture rooms, a university library, and a computer laboratory are among the most critical gaps remaining.
He also cited limited skills and capacity among faculty, minimal funding, resource constraints, and an over-reliance on graduate fellows, part-time staff, and visiting lecturers to fill the gap left by inadequate permanent staffing.
“We conduct regular staff interviews based on workload, implement policies that encourage staff retention, and lobby for wage increases from the government,” Kalenzi said.
Bureaucracy Is Blocking Construction
Even when funding arrives, getting it spent is apparently its own challenge. Eng Kiggundu raised concern about the lengthy and bureaucratic procurement processes that slow down construction projects at the university.
A telling example: Pallisa Campus received Shs1.2 billion from government in October 2025 for infrastructure development. As of now, that money has not been used — because the university is still waiting for clearance from both the Solicitor General and the Attorney General, processes that take considerable time and delay construction on the ground.
“For instance, Pallisa campus received funding of Shs1.2bn from government in October 2025, but it hasn’t been used because of procedural issues,” Eng Kiggundu said.
He called on government to urgently increase the resource envelope allocated to Busitema to address infrastructure and staffing challenges simultaneously.
A Community That Believed In The University
Not all the news from the tour was grim. Eng Kiggundu applauded the Pallisa District for donating land and allowing the university to establish a campus that currently accommodates the Faculty of Management Sciences.
“The people of Pallisa, through this donation, gave us a debt to transform the community by providing unique and relevant courses,” he said — an acknowledgement that local communities have invested trust in the institution, and that the university carries a responsibility to deliver on that trust.
The Plan Going Forward
The university has outlined several targets for the coming years. These include increasing student enrolment by 40 percent over the next five years, growing the number of academic programmes, strengthening research and innovation activities, and increasing the number of academic staff with PhDs.
The Vice Chancellor Mr Paul Wako acknowledged the constraints openly, attributing them largely to limited government funding and delays in disbursement — a systemic problem that affects many of Uganda’s public universities but hits newer, more rurally located institutions like Busitema particularly hard.
The university management says it is working to resolve the issues, but the message from education stakeholders was unambiguous: without urgent government action on infrastructure and staffing, Busitema’s growth story risks becoming a cautionary tale rather than a success story.
