Why can’t Bunyoro save Leaders Save Kigumba Cooperative College

December 4, 2009 at 1:08 pm (2009 -2011 elections, Education, KINGDOMS)
Tags:

Henry Mirima and all
I visited Kigumba Cooperative College during my recent home visit. It was disturbing to say the least to learn that the oil companies are trying to kill Kigumba Cooperative College by setting their own Oil Institute at the very same college. The Oil Institute construction workers are already on campus of the the Cooperative College. They have even started renovation of the sewerage system!

I understand Kigumba Cooperative College protested and even offered free of charge 200 acres of their own land for the oil institute to be built on. However, the Oil institute people have refused and insist on “renovating” the Coop College.This College is the only one of its type in Uganda, built by the Milton Obote I government, it offers diploma in cooperative management. It is a wonderful institution.

Another very interesting development is that a certain army General has commandeered one of the staff houses and renovated it under the pretext that he would like to enrol in the college to study cooperative management and need to stay in that house. Soldiers are now guarding this building. I understand the general enrolled last year, paid the full year fees but never showed up. Recently, he returned again , saying this time he is enrolling and will study for real. This particular general also has very close links with the Oil companies and is rumoured to have an oil exploration company of his own!

I just cannot understand why the oil institute cannot build their own college. What’s the point destroying one institution in order to set up another one in its place? Would it not be more developmental to build a new college so that there will be two institutions in the area, creating more employment and bringing development? I am really disgusted by this stupidity.

Betty Bigome is much celebrated in Gulu because when the government wanted to set up Gulu University they wanted it set up at Sir Samuel Baker School. This was the first national non denominational school ever built in Uganda, with very special values and Museveni’s government wanted to destroy it. But Bigome adamantly refused and insisted on a completely new university. Now both institutions are there, Gulu University is growing while Samuel Baker is undergoing complete renovation, paid for by the Norwegian Government. Even the Assembly Hall which got burnt several years ago is on its way to being restored to its full former glory. I was there and I saw that renovation work is already in high speed gear.
Why can’t Bunyoro MPs and leaders save the Coop College?
Pilipo Oruni

Leave a Comment

Use of boda boda to deliver exams and the Kajjansi swamp

November 4, 2009 at 3:36 pm (Agriculture, Education)
Tags:

It is shocking to learn that UNEB can allow the transportation of national Exams by boda boda.  At least one accident was reported involving deliveries of exam papers on the 1st day.  Assuming the exam papers had got damaged?  UNEB must be extra careful in ensuring that transportation of papers is by motor vehicles to ensure greater safety in delivery and that the drivers are cautioned to drive carefully so as to get to the destinations safely.

It is news that at least two girls delivered in the course of the papers and good enough, else where 4 girls were allowed to sit papers though pregnant.  Much more needs to be done to ensure that primary schools girls don’t get pregnant while still at school.

There is a school where examination papers were less than the number of candidates and papers had to be got from neighbouring schools.  The issue here is whether these are not cases where papers are stolen and given out to the cheats.

Also noted was a sound bite on one FM Radio where a child was concerned as the exam papers had some similarity with what had recently been reviewed.  The truth is that with the rampant corruption, UNEB cannot fill all the loopholes that can be used by the exam cheats.

Lastly,Basoga are not only known for making chapati’s some of which are half
fried but have gone a step to encroach on a swamp found at Kajjansi as you travel towards the airstrip.  This is surely the generosity of Baganda, however, the authorities should move very fast and see a stop to this development. Papyrus is being cleared very fast for rice planting.

Willy Kituuka

UAH forumist

Leave a Comment

Review of the Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act needs to be serious

November 4, 2009 at 3:30 pm (Education)
Tags:

It will make a lot of sense if among the reviews about the above law the handling of finances is given priority.  I was told by some body at Makerere University that fellows who had been given the assignment to generate financial reports on a daily basis failed and left the work incomplete.  The University ought to get the finance department from the academics.  People who are financial managers should be entrusted with a centralized financial system with one centre where balances can be accessed as well as handling of financial obligations. Many academicians excel in other disciplines but are not good at financial management.  It is absurd to learn that a well managed
establishment can have billions accumulated in unpaid bills to UMEME! We have advised time and again that the University should divest itself from investing funds paid by students to infrastructure development, but the people in control just continue on, and at the end of the day some body has the courage to tell the public that the University has over shs 20bn in unpaid bills.

The law should also focus on a Convocation which is much more in the arms of the University Administrators where the University Academic Registrar is the Secretary.  The review should focus on encouraging more participation of Old Students by getting the organization out of the direct umbrella of the University; that way chances of managers capable of implementing policies that can help efforts to raise funds may be better enhanced.

Willy Kituuka

UAH forumist

Leave a Comment

Do we need to sell land to S.Africans to do farming in Uganda

October 14, 2009 at 1:52 pm (Agriculture, Education)
Tags:

Fellow Ugandans,
I’m not too sure what has happened to the government of Uganda, but, I get the feeling that they are now operating with the strategy and credo of a spoiler, If we cannot take it all, lets destroy it so that no other can ever enjoy it.
How else do you explain the ushering in of south African farmers in less than an advisory or consultancy capacity? This is a very disturbing trend indeed and in a way an admission of defeat by the current administration.
We are saying to the world that 30 million black Africans have regressed so far back to have lost the most ancient skill necessary for survival, “farming”.
How much more knowledge does a south African farmer bring to the table to warrant yet another tribe land wrangle in our mix?
We all saw how much effort it took the native south African to reclaim their land, besides why put us into such a vulnerable position to put us in bed with a people who have historically demostrated such hatred for the native African!
Well, we are now paying the cost of refusing to train and equip our own with modern farming techniques, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, has given us several hints on available scholarships, where they could train our agriculturalists up to the PHD level, as long as we provide them food and shelter.
You’d think our government would have jumped to such an opportunity, but, no one seems to be in the capacity building department of our country. We need those lights in the human capital department turned on and working for us.
How could we as Africans ever dream of taking a man to the moon , if something as simple as putting a seed in the ground, irrigating with fertilizers, requires the selling off of our land to a rich neighbour to relieve us of the nightmare of cultivating it on our own.
NO, Mr. Museveni, there has to be a point in your development where you can say with some determination ”I CAN DO IT ON MY OWN”
Tendo
Ugandan in Boston

Leave a Comment

Student leaders are disorganised

September 8, 2009 at 4:17 pm (Education)
Tags:

Dear UAH,
Iam one of the people who have closely been following the students concerns at Makerere University.I have realised that the students cause hold water but the problem is their organisation and greed with in their circles. Foristance, when when they met Hon Rukutana, the  representation was only from Makerere University as opposed to all public Universities’ representatives! The few students leaders who were present told us that they suspect money to have changed hands. Some accused the Speaker and others accused the guild president.
When they were going to meet the minister, one must have seen how  the student leaders were disorganized! They first agreed to walk to the Ministry from the University. All of a sudden a few led by Sewino, the campus affairs decided to bodabodas because it was getting late to meet the Minister. This did not amuse a few students in my view who were right because if the were going to meet he minister, then why go in groups?
When we reached the ministry, the first people to chase were the press. Next the campus affairs minister came down( remember, when he reached the ministry, he was allowed to enter the ministry offices with the few he had gone with!). With the help of the security officers, he read the names of the leaders whom he thought would represent the others! About four or five were left behind with the journalists that the students had invited.
To my surprise and that of my fellow journalists, the long awaited meeting with the Minister did not take more than 10 minutes.They all came in a funny mood! When we asked them what had transpired, one of them told us’nothing much’. When they recovered from their shock, they adressed us and the only message they had for us was that the minister told them to wait for a statement which he would issue later that day! Another bad thing they told us was how the ministers delegation treated the students that had gone to meet him. When they reached there, they grouped them ie freshers versus continuing students. Surprisingly, there was no fresher! Then the next question the minister was; ‘why are you here since you are not freshers?’
It is from here that some of the students told us how some of their leaders had chewed something.

Godfrey Kayitarama

1 Comment

How Uganda came to be called Uganda?

May 29, 2009 at 11:45 pm (Education, History, KINGDOMS)
Tags:

1/7 Even before we get entangled into the weeds of street names, names of schools and names of large slums, the fact is, that of all colonially imposed names, the most inappropriate and rather silly is “Uganda”, the name of our country.
2/7 As you know, on all their journeys to the interior of East Africa, colonialists went around with Swahilli speaking askaris and translators.  Unlike the Bantu languages, Swahilli lacks the “B..” noun class.  In the Ugandan Bantu dialects, the names of the territories occupied by key ethnic groups are prefixed with “Bu”, hence, Bunyoro the home of Banyoro, Buganda that of Baganda; Bukonzo, Bugisu, Budama, etc.
3/7 For all those names, the Swahilli drop the B, and refer to place names as Unyoro, Ugisu, Ukonzo and…Uganda.  For the people inhabiting those place, the “Bu” prefix is shaved off completely…leaving you with Unyoro, the home of the Nyoro; Ukonzo the home of the Konzo, Uganda (Buganda) the home of the Ganda (Baganda).  For other places, you will hear of Ungeleza, Umarekani, Uchina, Urengo (Portugal).  If the Swahilli decide to use any prefix on the people, they will employ “Wa-”.
4/7 You also know that, originally, the interest of the British in the place now daftly called “Uganda” was to have Buganda (Uganda in Swahilli) as the protectorate or colony, not other adjoining areas.  Hence, you will hear of the 9th June 1894 dispatch from the Earl of Kimberley (British Foreign Office) to the Consul General of East Africa (Arthur Hardinge) regarding the formation of the ‘Uganda’ (meaning Buganda) protectorate: “This protectorate ( Uganda ) will extend only over the territory which is included in Uganda proper (i.e., Buganda ), bounded by Koki, Ankoli (sic) and Usoga (sic)..”. You may also have heard about Commissioner Hesketh Bell’s policy slogan: My policy is going to be ‘Uganda for the Baganda”

5/7 So, even after they changed their mind and went in for a larger territory, they maintained the name of the staging post…Uganda (or Buganda).  Even when the country has come to embrace Acholi, Lango, Banyoro, Banyankore (of Nkore..not “Ankole”), it is still called “Uganda” Swahilli for Buganda.  Very silly indeed!
6/7 We are so enslaved that, because the British mispronounced the Swahilli word, we also adopted the same silly mispronounciation: “Yuganda” (as in Yugoslavia)..where a word starts with letter U, in English it (mis)pronounced as Yu.  For countries like Uruguay, they were already firmly established that the name of the country could not be distorted.
7/7 If we are to castigate the inappropriateness of names, we have  to start with “Uganda”, the mispronounced misnomer….and by the way, if the colonialists had invaded through Bukonzo, or Bushenyi, or Bugisu, would we have been happy for the country to be called Ukonzo or Ushenyi, Or Ugisu? If not, then, why “Uganda”, the land of the Ganda?  Are Acholis, Banyoro, Bamba…all those…are they Ganda to belong to the land of the Ganda, or Buganda or Uganda in Swahilli?
Lance Corporal (Rtd) Otto Patrick

4 Comments

Uganda Boarding schools aren’t good for kids

March 25, 2009 at 12:45 pm (Education, PRESIDENCY)
Tags:

Dear Ugandans abroad,

Sending a child to a boarding school in Uganda is a mistake! Taking ones kids to school here just because you have failed to discipline them there abroad is wrong. There is no school in Uganda that is going to do the discipline for you. In other words there is no school here that is going to do the parenting for you. Schools in Uganda especially the private “good” ones are merely business projects. They are simply interested in your money.

There is this myth that Ugandan schools are better blah blah.This is simply nostalgia. Those schools are long dead- gone with the fundamental change of 1986! I know of many people who brought back their unruly kids to be taught here and they have all failed. Very few have gotten their money’s worth. The kids even got worse from here in Uganda. They learnt how to smoke bhung, marijuana and even cocaine from Kampala!

One of the kids when he went back to London became the boss of the street kids there! He is now serving time in “wormwood scrubs” a BIG prison in London! No sir, keep your kids where you are and where you can personally give them the parental love they need to grow up into responsible citizens.You bring them here in Uganda as a punishment, they will punish you back! Keep your kids with you. There are better schools over there. It’s where the Ministers and big people here in Uganda take their kids. Schools here have been spoilt by UPE,USE and no UUE (Universal University education)!


Just like the health sector has gone to the dogs, so has the education and everything else! It’s only the Presidency (PPU) that still works here! And even this, there are those who wonder …….

The mistake people make is to first bring their kids there in the developed nations then after they realize they are “failing” then “deport” their kids back to Uganda.This is both traumatizing and i think even illegal ! Imagine you are used to eating sausages and eggs, then they take you back  to a place where they serve posho and lumonde! You are used to living with your “loving” parents then you are abruptly whisked to  live with strangers in a dormitory?


If you think schools here in Uganda are better then leave  your kids here and never take them there in the first place. It’s only fair. I have seen Big men cry when they land at Entebbe after being deported. What do you think a young child goes through?
Some people have even committed suicide!

My view is this: Never ever take you kids out only to send them back “Mbu” to learn good manners or how to behave.The standard here have of course gone down the drain kabisa kabisa! I don’t think we shall ever get back to even half of what we had before the “Revolution”!

I earned my living sometimes back advising our people about this. It’s not a new thing. I got kids and I know what iam talking about. I went to boarding schools all my life and i think i got one of the best education our country did provide then. But i swore never to take my kids to boarding school. I just couldn’t imagine myself chewing chicken at home as my kid is somewhere with a rumbling stomach!
Thankfully of the many kids God has given me, only one has been through what i went through.. boarding school at a young age!
Gook Akanga

UAH forumist in Uganda

Leave a Comment

Boarding schools are good for kids

March 25, 2009 at 12:15 pm (Education)
Tags:

Dear Ugandans,
Putting a child in a boarding school is not a punishment and it doesn’t signify hate to the child. As a matter of fact kids like being in boarding schools regardless.I don’t think that those who don’t get the chance to go to boarding schools feel good about it.
By the way there is much more for a child in a boarding school than just eating.
first and fore most the children learn to be independent of their parents. Of course not financially but they learn to think for themselves. they learn how to use the resources they are given reasonably. They learn to live with People of different categories,like culture, attitudes, personalities just to mention a few. They learn to make some critical decisions and of course they have  more time to study.
When it comes to family to me is just the attachment you have with your family members regardless of where they are, not how close you live to them or how often you look at them.
There is a possibility of bunching together in a big house with no harmony, with your own kids not wanting even to look at you, or talk to you.When it comes to the rumbling of the stomach, even the good chicken or meet can easily make it do so. you can even have a running stomach with your good chicken or meet before your kid gets one with the maram at the boarding school.
Waduka Abdou.

3 Comments

Was Makerere Free To Demonstrate in the 1980s?

March 23, 2009 at 1:41 pm (Education, History, POLITICS)

1/8 Student demonstrations are a mode of political participation, just like insurrection, lobbying, insurgency, voting in an election, coup detat, sit down strikes, trade union petitions, violent protest, disengagement/exit etc. All those are actions that populations target at the political elite to make them defer to popular preferences.

2/8 Populations opt for any or a combination of those modes of participation depending on the circumstances. When one option is frustrated, others are tried. There were definitely varying degrees of those modes of political participation at different levels of Ugandan society (students inclusive) during Obote II.

3/8 If students were not demonstrating, what were they doing? Is it really true that Makerere Students were not dying? How many students deemed it unwise to go out on the streets to face, not the Police (because there was none), but the the “Special Forces”, instead opting to face the UNLA itself? How many UNLA/NASA/Special Force cordon and search operations took place in student halls of residence? How many lecturers died or run to exile?

4/8 If what matters is how many Makerere students died, then, let us know it: many students, primary/secondary school; undergraduates and postgraduates confronted the state, and multitudes perished at the hands of the security forces. This does not have to happen at a campus demonstration. There are also many students at the lower levels whose lives were disrupted to the point that demonstration was not even available as an option. Many died, many were orphaned, some like Robert were adopted not even by guerrillas, but by gorrillas…..see this link: (http://www.feralchildren.com/en/showchild.php?ch=robert)

5/8 There are several students who, as soon as they completed their final exams, walked straight from Makerere to “demonstrate” in arrears in the manner that the state understood best. They opted for insurgency because demonstrating in Wandegeya was as worthless as it was futile.

6/8 Some survived. In 1990, when the NRA allowed undergraduate students (who demonstrated and survived) to go back to Makerere, no less than 800 re-enlisted to complete their degree courses. No less than 1,500 went back to primary school….Kadogo School. For many years, each one of those was wanted dead or alive. Very many of their colleagues never lived to go back to complete their studies/courses, at places including Makerere which in their years in the 80s, were, as some of us would claim, the bastion of the freedom to demostrate.

7/8 It is hard to deny these realities without turning ourselves into callous cynics, harder even for those same ones of us that keep hollering about “truth and reconciliation”. It all amounts to dancing about on the graves of the unlamented.

8/8 The fact is, if Makerere did not bleed in the 1980s, it is because it was terminally anaemic.

Lance Corporal (Rtd) Otto Patrick

Leave a Comment

‘Tutsi’ are the only Ugandans in Museveni’s book

March 5, 2009 at 2:21 am (Education, POLITICS, PRESIDENCY)
Tags:

Tendo!

You observation below is well noted! That stated, Mucebeni has undertaken a deliberate  policy measure to frustrate the advancement  and aspiration of many citizens of Uganda  who are not Tutsi.

  • Only Tutsi are allowed to get government loans to set up business.
  • Only Tutsi are provided with government  scholarship  to study abroad,
  • Only Tutsi occupy prominent Government positions in any ministry

When a  journalist asked  Museveni about this apparent discrepancies which tends to favour tutsis in all aspects of the Uganda social, political and economic life , Museveni had the audacity to tell  the journalist  that  mbu Tutsis  seem to have all the favour because they are well read and smart .Other people from other parts  of Uganda … like in Northern Uganda are simply backwards and primitive.

Yet it is museveni’s policies of creating wars for 20 years and counting which has lead to dismal academic performance of Students in Northern Uganda. In Buganda, biting poverty has rendered most parents incapable of financing their children education in Good schools! And if some how a smart Muganda  kid reaches the University and obtains that degree  guess what… the kid never obtains any kind of employment. This has really frustrated many fellow citizens in Buganda.

And now Museveni is working hard to deprive citizens of the one thing they are still hanging on for survival… that is land!!! Once he grabs all the land and hands them over to Tutsi, people will really have no means to survive! You simply die a pauper!!!Something really must be done!!…

Matek Kopoko

Old Student of Buganda Road Primary School/UPC Activist and now resides in USA

Leave a Comment

Advise on education to Ugandans and the president

March 5, 2009 at 1:37 am (Africa, Education, POLITICS)
Tags:

Fellow Ugandans,

On the education scene our beef ought not be with the scholarly pursuits of any East African group but rather with our own government’s policies and seriousness regarding education. If Pres. Kagame of Rwanda is aggressive enough to obtain scholarships for his people let us applaud his efforts- because he is one of a few African leaders next to Botswana’s president who have recognized the power of education. He visits and empowers his students religiously every year, he gets an A+ in this regard.

 

 

I truly believe that if we managed our affairs well, we will have enough jobs to last us several decades. This favouring of one group over another, like the way Banyankole are favoured in Uganda, may have just a slight advantage, but it surely does not auger well for the development of the region.

 

Our contention ought to be with our own leadership on this matter, for a country on a development path we have not shown the necessary aggressiveness that is called upon to close the apparent gaps in education-this might well be what has long deterred our progress. In the last 20 years I have seen very few Ugandan Students both at Harvard and MIT-Yet these are the centres that have fuelled the Asian development machinery. I have seen more students from Rwanda as well as Zimbabwe. To date we have just one student pursuing her PHD in Electrical Engineering and perhaps a couple at Harvard doing their masters.

 

The scantiness of these numbers during the past 23 years speaks to the approach and perhaps policies not pursued that would have put us as a nation on a clear path of progress.  I can only urge our president to begin to recognize that the ills with AGOA and other initiatives that have not taken off-during his tenure are self inflicted. Indeed to stop selling raw materials you have to have an Industrial Engineering major at our Universities, to stop posturing as the garment sellers for India for purposes of Agoa, you need Textile Engineers and machinery to work your textile factories, and please do not let the life science boom pass us by. Many have profited from re-engineering herbs/medicines that are from our own land; and now that we have OIL there will be a need for both plastic Engineers and Chemical Engineers and this needs to be proactively catered for now.

 

 Tendo Kaluma

Leave a Comment

UPE and USE program in Uganda

March 3, 2009 at 12:06 am (Education, POLITICS, PRESIDENCY)
Tags:

Whereas UPE started in 1997, USE started with the 2007, ten years later. This implies that the beneficiaries of UPE the editor referred never benefited from USE. There are several factors responsible for the high drop out especially after P7 including but not limited to

· failure to make it from primary section to secondary

· poverty

· community’s perception about a girl child

· attitude towards education

· education environment

· early pregnancies

Several studies have been made about UPE drop outs and facts well are documented. Initially there was no free education after Primary seven, so many dropped out for reasons of school fees this is what prompted government to usher in USE even when other players thought we were ill prepared. We had however taken lessons from UPE and thus courteously implemented USE.

Government decided not to take on all classes and schools as desired we started with S.1 and S. 2 day schools in 2007 with candidates who had at least attained 28 aggregates. It was assumed that a parent who can afford to take a child in a boarding school is averagely fairing and therefore could afford to push on as Government supports the needy poor. This caused need for day schools in areas whether they are not available in order to extend this service evenly and equitably thus governments programme for seed secondary schools, one at least in every sub-county. We also cooperated with private day school to take on Government students as government constructs her own schools to accommodate the numbers.

USE at the moment is limited to O’ Level. Government proposes investing more in vocational institutions than advanced level so that 2 years after Ordinary level one comes one with practical skills relevant to his life. Then matters of theory and geography can be furthered by people with an option.

I am trying to access Mr. Kibenbe to get his comment on the inspectorate department and when I get it I shall post it. I have his mobile but I am not at liberty to give it out you can however try his office line on 414 258429.

However I want to let you know that there is no age limit to UPE. Many people too advantage of the opening up to education and went back to school when UPE started and that’s how the numbers overshoot. There is 75 year man who is now P. 6 in Arua and another one in 60s sat his Primary seven Kiwatule. He actually studied with his grand children in the same class.

Kids on the road: Government instituted rehabilitation officers at District levels to care of child affairs and they do a lot in resettling these children. They do monitoring up to their homes to settle conflicts in homes that cause children run aways. The challenge however is that this became a source of income. Many people with NGO to settle pretending to be helping these children actually entice them to keep on road. Besides others are sent by their own parents to stay on road and beg, so its been tricky. But I also agree that not enough has been done by the City Authorities.

Education was decentralised both by region and sections. By sections I mean Primary, Secondary and Higher Education. The Person now responsible for secondary education is Commissioner Nsubuga who can also be reached on 414 348026. I will talk to both and try to get their email addresses.

Aisha Kabanda

Former presidential Aide

Leave a Comment