OPINION: Regulate, Don’t Detonate: PSU’s Seven-Day Ultimatum Is No Way to Build Uganda’s Pharmacists
The Pharmaceutical Society of Uganda (PSU) has given Victoria University seven days to stop training hundreds of pharmacy students or risk losing recognition for its Bachelor of Pharmacy programme.
The ultimatum raises a critical question: Is regulation intended to protect public health through quality education, or to punish institutions and students when regulatory processes break down?
PSU has a statutory duty to uphold professional standards. Admission quotas exist for good reason, and Victoria University must account for its enrolment, staffing levels, laboratories and clinical training facilities.
However, the Society’s own letter states that the university applied in August 2025 to increase its approved intake from 50 to 250 students, a request that required a joint inspection with the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE). By November 2026, that inspection had still not taken place.
A pending application is not approval to exceed an enrolment quota. Equally, a pending inspection cannot justify prolonged regulatory inaction.
PSU also says it inspected the university in April 2026 and found that nearly 900 students were enrolled across 11 intakes. If those numbers posed an immediate threat to educational quality, why did it take until November to issue an ultimatum?
Students Should Not Become Collateral Damage
Hundreds of students now face uncertainty despite investing years of study and substantial financial resources in their education.
They deserve to know whether the university misled them. They also deserve an explanation for why regulatory concerns were not addressed sooner.
Students should not become leverage in a dispute between a university and its regulator. Where deficiencies exist, the response should include clear corrective measures and a credible plan to protect those already enrolled.
A Failure of Coordination
The dispute has also exposed a broader regulatory problem: an apparent lack of coordination between PSU and NCHE.
In response to the ultimatum, Ntume Sharif argued that the situation highlights the need for stronger statutory coordination between professional bodies and NCHE, warning that students risk becoming victims of regulatory failures.
That concern deserves serious attention. When institutions responsible for overseeing professional education fail to coordinate effectively, universities face uncertainty and students bear the consequences.
PSU’s assertion that “compliance must precede discussion” arguably gets the process backwards. Compliance is the objective, but achieving it requires inspections, dialogue, clear standards and enforceable timelines.
What Should Happen Now?
PSU and NCHE should complete the long-delayed joint inspection within 30 days, publish their findings and establish a time-bound remediation plan.
Victoria University, for its part, must cooperate fully and make its records available for scrutiny.
The regulator should also guarantee a fair teach-out arrangement for students already enrolled and clarify the rules governing multiple annual intakes.
PSU concludes its letter with the words “Health first.” That principle is beyond dispute.
But public health is not protected by regulatory delays followed by sweeping sanctions. It is protected by timely inspections, consistent enforcement and decisions that uphold standards without causing avoidable harm.
A regulator’s role is to make institutions safer and more accountable, not to leave hundreds of students paying the price for systemic failures.
