In Summary
My message to parents in Uganda is this: If you can get a good traditional school in Uganda and get a good university in Uganda for your son or daughter, save yourself the burden of forking out huge sums of money trying to send your child to abroad. Save that money, perhaps for the post-graduate level where more resources in terms of research equipment (especially for sciences) is needed, which some of our universities in Uganda lack
I thank your columnist Timothy Kalyegira for the thoughtful presentation of the state of our education in his article, “Why Uganda needs integrity more than a good education system” (Sunday Monitor, March 22).
In my view, with the exception of what Kalyegira pointed out as the perversity being brought in by the commercialisation of education, we haven’t been doing terribly badly thus far. I have had the chance to study with students from other corners of the world in both full and short academic programmes, at the best universities in Europe, the US, South America, Asia, and now South Africa.
At no point in time have I ever found myself lacking compared to the rest of the group. I have maintained my position (being in the top 5 per cent, racism notwithstanding), the way I was, right from my village school in Uganda.
You can ask anybody who has studied from America, Europe or elsewhere. Ugandans have been found to be on top of things, thanks in part to their foundation. I am currently in South Africa. I have fairly assessed their education system and all I can say, with the exception of the fact that they have more money and therefore better facilities, is that their education system - in many respects - is not any better than ours (rankings from a certain global study in Literacy and Maths corroborates my rough assessment) .
My message to parents in Uganda is this: If you can get a good traditional school in Uganda and get a good university in Uganda for your son or daughter, save yourself the burden of forking out huge sums of money trying to send your child to abroad. Save that money, perhaps for the post-graduate level where more resources in terms of research equipment (especially for sciences) is needed, which some of our universities in Uganda lack.
If we can break away from the cancer that is turning our education, especially at the primary and secondary levels, into a business (buying exams, cheating, for the sake of appearing on TV and newspapers in order to boost enrollment), we could, with some improvements, do well.
Finally, government must stop pretending and get parents to pay for their children again in primary schools and also feed them. That will arrest the declining standards in most UPE schools that made minister Amelia Kyambadde break down recently.
Fibanocci K,
Kampala