Perspectives from the local community on strategies for community transformation in Uganda’s public universities

Abstract

Several Universities in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) rarely have a clearly defined strategy for transforming communities. This is partly because some are still built on colonial models, which place a strong focus on theory, rote learning, and memorisation, where learners duplicate the content during examinations with little or no impact on the community. As a result, the surrounding communities continue to grapple with high levels of poverty, illiteracy, poor housing, disease, and poorquality health and hygiene. This study explores the strategies Gulu University is using to transform the post-conflict community of Gulu City, northern Uganda. A cross-sectional research design was used involving 390 households. Selfadministered questionnaires were employed to collect data on community perceptions of the operationalisation of the different strategies employed by Gulu University to transform the community. Descriptive statistics was used to determine the most outstanding strategies and their associated variables, while chisquare test was performed to assess the relationship between community perception of the existence of Gulu University and the strategies of community transformation. Findings revealed that, first, Gulu University’s strategy of knowledge application has been perceived by the surrounding community to have worked well by increasing employment opportunities, providing young people with opportunities for meaningful livelihood activities, reducing crime, and fostering enterprise development in the surrounding community. Second, the strategy of partnerships and community projects has paid off by providing scholarships to help community members further their education. However, there is still more to be done in terms of knowledge generation strategy through skill training, knowledge transmission strategy through technology transfer, primary health care, better farming engagements, and innovative business services, as well as partnerships and community projects strategy via enterprise development. Furthermore, findings indicated that there was a significant association between community perceptions of transformation and the existence of Gulu University. The findings highlight potential areas of focus for Gulu University and other Ugandan universities for formulating policies that higher institutions of learning can employ to transform communities. Besides, future research should explore the dimensions of community transformation that influence the role of higher institutions of learning in transforming communities.