The teachers are among the worst paid. Many have become bonafide refugees in schools. Pupils can only write their own names after 7 years of 'education'. Universal Primary Education has failed the student and the teacher. Some teachers are not paid for six months at a stretch.
For a parent who wishes their son or daughter to go to University to study Education courses, it is a difficult thing doing so when the parent and their child knows they will join the Education sector where the brunt of Uganda's inequality of resource allocation is based.
We now face the crisis of training an Educator? should we ask them to sacrifice themselves to serve the country when we ourselves have not sacrificed anything for Uganda?
The Education sector is a ticking time bomb. We have now a wide gulf between the privileged education systems that are teaching 'International education curricula' and the rest of the schools that have hungry children learning under mango trees.
What now do we do to fight the cancer of inequality being fomented by an unfair and unsustainable education system in Uganda?
We have dwindling numbers in the Education learning sector. Besides the obvious problem coming form the top, what are the issues that need to urgently be addressed? Marketing our programs. repackaging and restructuring our programs, using the internet better to make our content available to the public. We also have the claims that tuition fees are too high.
The Government of course has had a big part in this. We have over politicized Education sector. We have a Parliament that think we the people exist to 'provide them with position', yet they are supposed to guarantee the safety of all sectors. They have failed in their oversight role, in their law makers role as far as the Education sector is concerned.
My view would be to go for scrapping the Private 'International School system' and ensure that all learners study from the safe schools. Why should we continue to allow this gross inequality to continue. How many politicians, ministers, parliamentarians have their children going to UPE schools?
We should also push for the schools reverting from Government hands to the founding Religious Missionary schools.
We also need to look at the issue of weak institutions on local government level. Service delivery at Local Government level is at an all time low due to many issues but primanry among them being the excessive power at the Central Government. Everything must go back to the Centre, thus creating a 'feasting' ground for corrupt officials.
Is the education of Educators in Uganda on the operating table? I would say yes it is! But for operation to correct fundamental illnesses. Certainly not to die. Education of Educators can only die if the country dies too.
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