Our Journey

The Uganda Management Institute (UMI) started in October 7, 1969 as a Management Development Institute (MDI), then known as the Institute of Public Administration. The Institute was mandated to conduct intensive in-service training to quickly develop management capacity in the public service. It has gone through various transformations to what it is right now. In 2004, UMI was elevated to a Degree-Granting Institution by an act of Parliament. However, UMI remained an MDI. What this means is that it was able to grant degrees while continuing with its mandate of offering short courses leading to the award of certificates and diplomas. With these two mandates, UMI was then restructured into four schools; the School of Business and Management; the School of Civil Service, Public Administration and Governance; the School of Distance Learning & Information Technology as well as the School of Management Sciences. Today, UMI is geared towards the fourth industrial revolution and our anchor point is to be a Research Led University.

WHO WE ARE

MissionTo Excel in Developing Practical and Sustainable Administration, Leadership and Management Capacity

BranchesGulu
Mbale
Mbarara

MandateTo equip students with job and task related skills, values and attitude to perform their duties at their different places of work.

VisionTo be a World Class Management Development Institute.

Being Research Led

How to Achieve It

Researchers are exploring ways to personalize education and training to better meet the needs of individual participants.  This includes using technology to deliver customized content as well as adapting delivery methods to better suit different learning styles of participants.

There is growing recognition and appreciation by researchers that social and emotional skills are critical for success in the Institute and beyond.  Research is exploring ways to integrate social and emotional learning into the curriculum and develop effective strategies for teaching these skills.

As a research led Institution we exploring ways to improve faculty training and professional development to better prepare them for the challenges of modern lecture rooms.

What To Do

Universities have tried to partner with industries, private and public agencies, specialised institutions, and centres of excellence, incubations centres, business entrepreneurs, and Universities to align research priorities with their needs.

We are investing in research infrastructure to support cutting-edge research.  This will include labs, equipment and technology.

We are encouraging interdisciplinary research programs that bring together research from different disciplines to work on complex issues.  This leads to innovative solutions that would not be possible through single-discipline research.

We are working on fostering a culture of innovation by encouraging risk-taking creativity and collaboration so as to promote a dynamic research environment to attract top talent

Compliance as a tool towards being Research & Science Anchored

There are a number of ways in which we are trying to maintain compliance and integrity at UMI. First of all, it’s about our allegiance to academic integrity, so follow all the necessary academic integrity protocols set by National Council of Higher education and the regulations and the protocols set by our institution. We also follow international based practices

Secondly, we are the only education institution that is ISO certified. Which means that we have international standards that we follow. Some of our programmes for example, the masters on Public Administration, are internationally accredited by ICAPA, which is a body between United Nations and the International Institute of Schools of Public Administration that promotes standards both in terms of content processing and research.

The other one is about the caliber of the staff that we recruit. We recruit people who are highly trained, but at the same time we have practice and are from diverse places and we do a lot of due diligence before one becomes part of our faculty.

We also have visiting professors from distinguished universities abroad and we partner with them. For example Universities in South Africa, Germany and the United States of America are part of our faculty in terms of visiting professors.

We have external examiners from reputable institutions who make sure that our products and our student’s meet the standards

Lastly, we also have a very strong Quality Assurance Department which ensures that e do things according to the expected plans. we have student’ assessment for every module taught and for every programme ended and from those assessments we get feedback that helps self-correct where have some gaps.

Initially it was largely a training institution and the focus was on education and training. Then it’s now running the research led agenda. And under the research led agenda, these are some of the highlights that have come out

One is that now all academic staff have to have Doctoral Degrees, which was not there in the first and now all most all the academic staff have doctoral degrees and those who do not are in the PhD truck.

The second one is that UMI was not offering PhDs. We are one of the few institutions that is offering a taught PhD in administration and management in the region

Thirdly, publications by staff. We have a regular journal but also our faculty have published books, book chapters and a number of peer-reviewed articles in different places and now there is emphasis on publications for promotions which never existed may be 20 years ago.

There is also an increase in the number of dissertations that are being converted into other publications.

We have an international conference every two years and the recent was held in October. We always have over 400 guests from over 15 countries where we exchange knowledge.

Every quarter we have a policy dialogue and during this policy Dialogue there is interaction between the practitioners and the academies.

So we conduct scientific research and then we invite the technocrats to share their practical experience and dispute our work eventually this comes with a policy brief.

We have a journal .The Uganda Policy Management Development Journal, which is produced regularly.

In terms of innovation, we have a business incubation center which incubates business ideas. We have a lot of applied research which we do through our consultancy hand, where we do a lot of applied research for a number of agencies and also a number of institutions and we also have a number of collaborations with varies entities like, The Uganda Prisons Authority, Uganda Police , Ministry of Defence and both internally and externally. We are doing some research work in Southern Sudan, In Burundi and in Somalia.

So we have a diversity of initiatives but we believe that a lot is yet to be done, to strengthen our research capacity. The only shortfall is that we are still having minimal funding from the government for research activities.

First of all is the infrastructure. We have ensured that we have sufficient infrastructure for our learners both at the Kampala Campus and also up country branches in Mbarara, Gulu and Mbale.

We have also tried to put sufficient ICT infrastructure in terms of computer and access to the internet so that our student can have the internet.

The stock of our library is also an issue that we can talk about. We have a big collection of, especially electronic books and other electronic resources, and we are the National Documentation Centre and so we have enough resources in terms of what students can access to have a learning environment.

The second one is about staff. We have full time staff but because we are a competence Based training institution, we also have visiting lecturers and Associates who are in the industry. And come and share their experiences on the specific aspects.

For example, if we are teaching Human Resource Management, we invite Human Resource Managers to come and take through students on particular aspects from the practice point of view. So we blend theory and practice for the benefit of the student and for each and every module we have guest lecturer.

Then we also, through the nurture of our students, ours largely is a post graduate training institution and in o0rded to be admitted either as a teacher or a student, you must have some working experience. For us teaching staff, we must at least have 5 years of working experience but as a student, at least 1 year of working experience.

The first one is the competence-based training where we have a good blend of theory and practice because we deal with applied discipline, which is Managing and the varies branches of management. So what we teach both includes your scientific value meaning that y6ou can be a good scholar and researcher, but at the same time it also significantly improves your utility value or the ability to translate your knowledge into practice because we do a deliberate blend of the two.

Two, it is a career switch place, people who want to get into managerial positions find UMI more relevant because they have other backgrounds. But when they come here, our programmes orient them to become managers not only knowledgeable about management but also being able to practice management.

The other one is the mode of our teaching. For every module we have to involve a guest speaker, a resident faculty, and also a practitioner. So the exposure our students get is not seen anywhere else.

The other one is the extent which we also have relationships within the industry, For example, we have a close working relationship with the cabinet secretariat when we are teaching policy analysis. We have a good working relationship with the NGO community when we are teaching NGO Management, we also have close working relationship with education so we always try to make sure that we have a linkage with the areas that we teach.

Snap Shot
of UMI

Core Values
  • Customer Focus
  • Professionalism
  • Teamwork
  • Integrity, Transparency & Accountability
  • Equity & Fairness
  • Innovativeness & Adaptability
Offers

UMI offers a number of academic programmes at diploma, post graduate, Masters and PhD levels. UMI is classified legally as an ‘‘other Degree Awarding Institutions”. UMI”s mandate is to provide training, research and consultancy services to the public, private and Non- governmental Organizations (NGO) sectors as a Management Development Institute that offers post graduate Programmes.

Mandate

UMI’s mandate is to equip students with job and task related skills, values and attitude to perform their duties at their different places of work. “We give practical training to our students.  That’s why our major method of facilitation is through case studies. Much as we give them knowledge, our main focus is on the skills development, such that after training, one can be competent at their place of work,” says Dr Kasozi Mulindwa, the Director Programs and students affairs. It is against this background that the Institute looks at people who have got both academic credentials and work experience in their field of study when enrolling students. UMI only takes on students who have at least one year of work experience post-graduation. Learning at UMI is participatory. Students have to share experiences and challenges at their work places, making them solution givers and also giving them an opportunity to learn from others and their facilitators. UMI programmes are geared towards improving service delivery. The curriculum is developed to address practical issues and build human resource capacity to deliver.  The Institute undertakes a rigorous process of development of programmes so that they are relevant to their job market.  Stakeholder consultations are carried out on all programmes to ensure what is offered is what is needed by the public.

Future

UMI’s vision is to be a World Class Management Development Institute that excels in Developing Practical and Sustainable Administration, Leadership, and Management Capacity. ‘We will continue maintaining and sustaining people who provide service with the Institute. We also have to continue ushering UMI into the next generation.  This is expensive, but we have to work hard at it, “explains Dr James Nkata, Director General.  Nkata further says he’s leading a trudge to make UMI a technologically compliant institution that fits in the world at any particular time. ” we are now an international organization of Standardization (ISO) accredited Institute. We continue to subscribe to the internationally accepted standards of training and education in the management development institutes,” The Director General avers the institute is pushing UMI’s Programmes to the point that they will all become accredited by the international accreditation bodies.

Opportunity

Director Programmes says those who complete their post graduates diplomas and wish to continue with their Master’s program must endeavor to meet the Institute’s pass mark which enables them to proceed to the Masters Programmes in the field they trained in at the diploma level. “All the Programmes can be attained at all our campuses which include, Kampala which is the headquarters, Gulu, Mbarara and Mbale. And they are all accredited by the National Council for Higher Education,” he says