Opinion: The Primary Education system in Uganda today

Over the years I have thought and reflected on Uganda’s education system with keen interest in primary education. Let me give a highlight of this.

In 1999 there were 6 million pupils receiving primary education, compared to only 2 million in 1986. Numbers received a boost in 1997 when free primary education was made available for four children per family. Only some of primary school graduates go on to take any form of secondary education. This is contingent upon them passing their Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE).
Uganda is one of East Africa's developing countries, bordered by Tanzania, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, and Kenya. It occupies 236,040 square kilometres (91,140 sq mi) and has about 41.5 million people (Source: World Bank).

General Survey: Preprimary children can begin school at age of three. Most urban areas have fine preschool facilities. Preschool is very commercial, and the private sector dominates such schools. The government is concerned about the lack of regulation at this level. Fees are often seen as excessive and exclusionary. The quality of education is very uneven, as are teaching methods, facilities, and alleged violations of sound pedagogical principles of child psychology and development. The problem with the better schools is competition, which is so high for the few positions available that parents must literally enroll the child at birth to assure that the child will find a place in these preschools.
The main problem facing primary educators in Uganda is budgetary. Beyond this there is a great disparity between the education available in cities and in remote rural areas. This attracts Ugandans to cities like a magnet and is the source of many urban problems when unsuccessful students drop out and take to crime or other self-help activities to support themselves. More vocational training is being introduced into primary school curriculums in an attempt to address this problem.

Curriculum: Primary students study arithmetic, natural science, farming, health, reading, writing, music, English, religion, and physical education in grades one and two. Grades two through seven add art, crafts, language, history, geography (often of England and the United States), and cooking and domestic science for young girls. Curriculums are established by the National Curriculum Development Center (NCDC). Panels of teachers and members of examination boards, university professors, and educational inspectors review all curricula. The NCDC examines syllabi and textbooks, as well as teachers guides. They even write textbooks or recommend revisions. The Ministry of Education implements the recommendations of the NCDC. Many primary schools have libraries to encourage the habit of reading as a lifelong activity. 

Teachers: Primary school teachers are very mobile, and there is a persistent shortage of such teachers. In 1979, some 16.2 percent of approved teaching positions were unfilled. In 1980 there were 38,422 primary school teachers in almost 4,500 schools. The teacher-pupil ratio was about 1:34. Most were trained in grade three teacher training colleges. This means that these teachers have at least finished secondary school before being admitted to grade two teacher training. In the past they could teach primary school if they had finished grade seven. A few unqualified teachers from the old system are still teaching but they are being phased out.

Current education system and relevance in regard to the young ones
Having given the above background of the education system in Uganda, my focus is first on the current nursery system in this country. Most often I have felt so bad looking at the toddlers on motor bikes very early in the morning 4 to 6 parked on a single bike as early 6:00am. Is this the kind of education that we admire currently in the country? Ok, then they get to class and leave as “early” as 5:00pm, hey do you know the age bracket here (2-3 years), apart from singing and playing which is also great for their development, isn’t that early morning sleep important as well to them?. Every morning from Monday to Friday they are disrupted as they take their last morning nap.

English is the official language in Uganda yes, what about their mother tongue?. Some parents currently even punish their kids because they spoke “vernacular” at home. When should they learn their language? It is the reason that today these children will grow up into adults and they cannot speak fluently and confidently in their mother tongue. The toddlers……..

Now my upper class boys and girls out of baby, upper and middle classes (the graduates), you will be shocked at the rate they are pumped and handled with stuff. 

One evening at around 6:00pm, I followed pupils that had just left evening classes. Guess what they carried huge bags approximately 5-10kgs of books.

 I imagined and compared myself to these pupils, during my primary days in the 90’s I remember I carried about 6 to 8 books and revision seemed not to be part of me. I did it if I must but as early as primary two they do serious revision, talk of home works the parents are now part of homework session with lots of embarrassment because of the kind of questions that kids currently have to answer. As a result of the hard core questions they resort to their saviors’ the parents who also have to google to get the answers, oh the Uganda education system!!.

And now the school fees, the amount of money they pay currently is equivalent or more than what University students pay for the 4 months semester and they will pay this in three months. Because UPE seems not to be performing, affording parents will run to these expensive private institutions. The requirements are very annoying if I may use that word, several rolls of toilet paper, rims of paper, brooms name them. My question is has the Government done enough to regulate levying of these “business” schools fees or its laisevez?? 

In a nutshell I have so many questions here with fewer answers and if they are not addressed am afraid we may be headed for a tougher, too expensive and challenging education system in Uganda. Much as it is said “If you think education is expensive then try ignorance”, at this rate many may actually go for ignorance. 

The writer is a blogger and Computer Scientist.

OPINION: Social media, the impact to productive work

By Yosia Baluku: 
Interacting with friends and family across long distances has been a concern of humans for centuries. As social animals, people have always relied on communication to strengthen their relationships. When face-to-face discussions are impossible or inconvenient, Just to recall imagine the letters we wrote and were sent from one person to another till the intended receiver across. Later two other innovations came into picture in the last decade of 1800s; the radio in 1891 and telephone in 1890. These are still in use to date. Humans have dreamed up plenty of creative solutions. 

Technology began to change very rapidly in the 20th Century. After the first super computers were created in the 1940s, scientists and engineers began to develop ways to create networks between those computers, and this would later lead to the birth of the Internet.

It is believed that the first recognizable social media site, Six Degrees, was created in 1997. It enabled users to upload a profile and make friends with other users. In 1999, the first blogging sites became popular, creating a social media sensation that’s still popular today.

After the invention of blogging, social media began to explode in popularity. Sites like MySpace and LinkedIn gained prominence in the early 2000s, and sites like Photobucket and Flickr facilitated online photo sharing. YouTube came out in 2005, creating an entirely new way for people to communicate and share with each other across great distances.
By 2006, Facebook and Twitter both became available to users throughout the world. These sites remain some of the most popular social networks on the Internet. Other sites like Tumblr, Spotify, Foursquare and Pinterest began popping up to fill specific social networking niches.

Today, there is a tremendous variety of social networking sites, and many of them can be linked to allow cross-posting. This creates an environment where users can reach the maximum number of people without sacrificing the intimacy of person-to-person communication. We can only speculate about what the future of social networking may look in the next decade or even 100 years from now, but it seems clear that it will exist in some form for as long as humans are alive. And now the current whatsapp bandwagon oh my;
But all that said my concern here is to look at the impact of all this evolution on productive work be it in office, on the farm and everywhere else that work takes place.
The so many pop ups with several sounds on the phone keep abstracting their concentration and at the end of the day nearly 2 thirds of the time is spent checking out those videos, funny pictures, animations and the entire hoax involved.

According to TeamLease World of Work Report, an average of 2.35 hours is spent accessing social media at work every day and 13 per cent of the total productivity is lost owing to the social media indulgence alone.
According to the same report, Facebook is the most visited social media platform. Out of the 62 per cent employees who accessed social media during working hours, nearly 83 per cent of them spend significant time browsing Facebook.
I also think that currently whatsapp may have taken over these statistics.

On the other side however social media has been and still a great weapon of information dissemination, most organizations currently have changed their way of communication KRC inclusive. Much as others may think it’s time wasting to the contrary it’s a very powerful tool. Within a tweak of an eye information is everywhere all over the world.
By the way most employers have also relied on social media as a means of recruitment process to reduce recruitment costs.
Many more good things have happened on social media including relationships though it’s not a better option for this in my opinion and I would not recommend that.

Conclusively social media stimulates collaboration and knowledge sharing between individuals which can lead to increased or decreased productivity. However it (social media) should be channeled in an effective way to get maximum results from employees as there could be pitfalls employees could succumb to if left unattended. 

The writer is a Computer Science Specialist.

New online auction system launched in Uganda

This is a very great innovation, we hope it works perfectly.

Credit: Daily monitor-Uganda

Ugandans can now participate in auctioning online, thanks to a new portal.

Auctions in many parts of the world demand a certain level of physical presence, and according to Mr Trevor Rukundo, the, sales director, DafaBet Uganda, the company wants to bring "consumers and wholesalers as well as manufacturers in one online market space".  

The intention, according to Mr Rukundo is for participants to have the luxury of time to make decisions of buying and selling online within a certain time frame.

In these transactions, bid amounts are submitted through mobile money. Each item has a minimum bid requirement and every bid should be higher than the minimum amount required for the particular auction item, by atleast Shs1,000.

"The lowest unique bid wins the auction. Amounts must also be unique and not identical to any other amounts. Auctions close after a specified number of bids have been received and winners are notified," Mr Rukundo added.

Was great celebrating this

Was a great feeling being part of success celebrations at KRC.

This was right after running for health.