Courses & Programmes

About Courses at Makerere University

A course is a unit of work in particular Field/Area of study normally extending through one semester the completion of which normally carries credit towards the fulfillment of the requirements of certain Degrees or Diplomas.

Contact Hours & Credit Units

A contact hour shall be equivalent to One (1) hour of lecture/ clinical or two (2) hours of tutorial/ Practical or four (4) hours of internship/ field work. A Credit or Credit Unit is the measure used to reflect the relative weight of a given course towards the fulfillment of appropriate Degree, Diploma, Certificate or other programmes required. One Credit Unit shall be One Contact Hour per Week per Semester or a series of Fifteen (15) Contact Hours.

Courses Categories

How are Courses categorized? Courses are categorized as Core, Elective, Pre-requisite or Audited.

What are Core Courses? A Core course shall be a course which is essential to an Academic Programme gives the programme its unique features. Everyone offering that academic programme must pass that course.

What is an Elective Course? An Elective Course is a course offered in order to broaden an Academic Programme or to allow for specialization. It is chosen from a given group of Courses largely at the convenience of the student. Another Elective Course may be substituted for a failed Elective Course.

What is an Audited Course? An audited course shall be a course offered by a student for which s Credit/ Credit Unit shall not be awarded. Students are encouraged to register for Audited Courses as well.

What is a Prerequisite Course? A prerequisite is a condition (either Course or Classification), which has to be satisfied prior to enrolling for the Course in question. A pre-requisite course, therefore, shall be a course offered in preparation for a higher-level course in the same area of study. When a student fails a Pre-requisite course, he/she shall not be allowed to take the higher level course requiring pre-requisite.

Course Assessment

Each course is assessed in two parts as follows: - The Coursework (Progressive/ Continuous Assessment), which shall contribute not less than 30% nor more than 40% of the Total Marks The Coursework (Progressive/ Continuous Assessment) component shall consist of at least one (1) Homework/ Take-Home Assignment OR Two (2) Tests per course. The University Examinations, which shall contribute a maximum of 70% of the Total marks.

Examination

The last two weeks of the semester are dates for the End Semester examinations. A precise timetable, giving day and room for each exam, is published during the semester. This timetable goes up on the examination Notice boards at your college/ school. You also need to copy from this timetable your personalized timetable, which gives you allocation of date, time and examination room.

While there is a lot reasonable care made to ensure that examination sessions don’t clash, there might be coincidences where this happens due to limited time/ examinations rooms. When the first edition of the timetable is published, you might find clashes in your timetable where by you are supposed to appear in more than one examination at the same time or the list of examinations is wrong or missing, you should draw attention of the Examinations CoOrdinator in your College/ School about such a problem as soon as possible.