Tag: Education

Prioritising Education as A Strategic Blueprint for National Economic Transformation

Posted on by Musiime George

An August 2024 collaborative policy review by the Pan African Coalition for Transformation and the Economic Policy Review Center made several recommendations for enhancing the effectiveness of the revised Lower Secondary Curriculum. Among other things, the paper recommended continuous teacher training, all-round stakeholder engagement and publisher regulation to ensure learning materials stay in tune with curriculum objectives.

While both the policy paper and curriculum revision sought to align education with National Development goals. As a nation, we still have a lot to do and can draw meaningful insights from thoughts shared by Chinese President Xi Jinping during a group meeting of the 3rd session of the 14th National Committee of the CPPCC.  In his guidance, president Xi stressed the role of education in supporting scientific and technological advancement as well as talent development. He also emphasized the critical role of the three, not just in modernization but also economic development.

The United Nations (UN) acknowledges that aligning education with sustainable development goals (SDGs) is critical for creating a more equitable and sustainable future for humanity. However, in Uganda like many countries in the global south, access to quality education still is a privilege. Moreover, as this trend persists, the implication is that the country’s ability to produce the necessary talent to drive economic transformation stays handicapped in the least. A survey by the Daily Monitor from 2024 indicated that out of 400,000 graduates annually only 113000 (28.25%) made it into gainful employment.  The major cause for this trend according to the national bureau of statistics, was a skills gap.

However, even where a shortage of jobs is faulted, it can still be linked back to the little progress being made in advancing science and technology. Sadly, this transmutes into a gap in the national development gains through an over dependence on imported talent and technology, all due to the shaky educational foundation. A lack of capacity in these areas breeds chronic dependence on imported technology and talent, significantly blighting the country’s investment in Research and Development, not to mention skills development.

On the other hand, there’s a plethora of other risks that come with this kind of chronic deficiency in self sufficiency. Indeed, these risks can range from economic vulnerabilities, a lack of innovation and skills development, weakening education systems, endangered sovereignty and other geopolitical risks.

Whereas imported skills and technology might be an imperative in the beginning, their gains can only be short-term. On the contrary, sustainable growth takes investment in education, research and development as inroads to domestic capabilities. This is how China was transformed into a self-sufficient economy, lead the world innovation, STEM education et cetera…deliberately investing in its education. In fact, while this might seem sufficient， president Xi committed to increasing education funding by 5% (174.44 billion yuan) this year. This is a reminder that to be comfortable in the present is to curtail progress and invite stagnation and as a country we must aspire for better if we must attain our goals of modernization.

This is why introspection on these thoughts must provide an impetus to acknowledge that there can be no scientific and technological progress, innovation, let alone talent cultivation if the garden of education is left unattended. More so, as a country, there is a need to track the talent and skillset of Ugandan not only to know what skills we have but also to ensure maximum utilization of these different skills spread across the population. Otherwise it is a huge disservice to the country when nationals are contributing towards economic transformation in other places, the same skills we desperately need at home. By defining the countries development goals, the medium and long term, we can determine the skills we need and enhance our capacity to produce people with these skills. It is no different with how China for example is able to produce more than 3.5 million STEM graduate, it takes a long term strategy. Therefore, aligning education with both development goals and gaps in the labor market, will also help uphold the value of education. This ensures that there are quantifiable benefits to attaining an education, something that has been slowly receding in Uganda over the years. Unless we are able to achieve this, we shall continue to demean our education to a point where people no longer see any value in having a degree for example and this is nothing but self-sabotage.

The Law of the Dark Forest. Africa’s initial interaction with the outside world was purely characterized by exploitation and domination. However, this has slowly been changing following China’s win-win outcomes, and later, the measures to drive industrialization, and talent development. Unless we develop domestic capacity, we can only be at the mercy of others, especially if mutual benefit and win-win outcomes are not top of their agenda. If Everyone else has a gun pointed at our economic transformation goals, then only by tailoring our education to meet these goals can we be in a better position to achieve them. Therefore, as we work to improve our economic growth, we cannot overlook the role of a sound education as a pathway to productivity growth, innovation, competitiveness, skills development, economic resilience et cetera. And only after we settle these, can we switch our emphasis towards engaging with the rest of the world on more favorable terms.

As we learn from President Xi’s advice, meaningful economic transformation must begin with a sound education system. A sound educational foundation paves the way for; the advancement of science and technology, innovation, skills development, and self-sufficiency. However, self-sufficiency must be viewed not as an end, but as a means towards building domestic capacity the same way China focused on developing domestic capacity before opening up. Therefore, as a country seeking economic transformation, we must acknowledge the self-sufficiency supports our aspirations as chronic decency is against them. In addition, self-sufficiency is not possible in the absence of innovation, skills development, scientific and technology advancements which are anchored on a sound education system. Thus to pursue economic growth and modernization while ignoring the need to invest in education is like wishing to arrive at the destination without making the journey. Unless education is put at the center of our development strategy, all we can hope to achieve is nothing different from what we have achieved in the past.

George Musiime is a Research Fellow, Development Watch Centre.

georgemusiime@dwcug.org

 

Revamping Uganda’s Vocational Education: Lessons From China

Posted on by Nnanda Kizito Sseruwagi

Recently, a vocational institute in Uganda entered a memorandum of understanding with China’s Hunan Mechanical and Electrical Polytechnic (HMEP). I was delighted to learn that Uganda’s Luyanzi Institute of Technology (LIT), a vocational school in Kampala, is opening channels of opportunities to enhance training and employment opportunities for its students and teachers by enabling them access training programs, dual diploma programs, information exchange, materials and lectures, and joint research with such an advanced Chinese institute.

Vocational education in Uganda is highly stigmatised, to our detriment. It is referred to as “eby’emikono” in Luganda – a kind of downgrade of educational attainment from intellectual development to hand-skills, akin to our primate cousins which primarily survive on nimbleness of limbs.

For a country grappling with high youth unemployment rates, it is mistaken to overlook the potential of vocational education to skill our young people. It is the more urgent that we are a developing country with an acute need for skilled labourers to support our industrialisation. Our unbuilt and degraded infrastructure requires the skills of millions of skilled workers to build and maintain. A lot of government revenue is lost whenever we hire international firms to build our roads, airports, bridges and buildings.

One of the world’s most respected manufacturing countries, Germany, is proudly a vocational education giant. About 50% of German school leavers join vocational training to acquire advanced technical skills. Historically, few children went to college and yet the country was always an industrial powerhouse because it highly valued vocational training.

Uganda passed the Business, Technical and Vocational Training (BTVET) Act in 2008 to comprehensively cover the country’s vocational education needs. However, we have delivered short on implementation. I recently visited the Uganda Technical College Kichwamba. It is one of the most modernly built, well-equipped institutions I have seen in the country. Unfortunately, the institute can be seen on any day to be sparsely distributed with students. A cursory poll I conducted showed that some districts have no single student at the institute, while majority have one or two. This is a gross misuse of the huge investment in this school.

We should expand the size and number of vocational schools and have a compulsory education policy similar to UPE and USE, and also incentivise vocational training for example by assuring students ready jobs in government projects upon graduation.

China is the world’s second-biggest economy and fasted developing country. It has the world’s largest vocational education system with 9,752 secondary vocational schools and over 17.8 million students as reported by its Ministry of Education in 2023.

The NRM government’s historical mission to Uganda has often been stated to be the social-economic transformation of the country. To achieve this, government should align the economic and social development goals of the country with vocational education. China realised this early and adjusted the structure of its vocational schools to keep pace with new developments in supply chains, markets, technologies and consumption patterns. Currently, over 1,300 disciplines and 120,000 programs are offered by its vocational education institutions covering all areas of the national economy. For instance, over 70% of new frontline workers in advanced manufacturing, emerging industries and the IT-powered service sector are graduates of vocational schools.

The stigmatisation of vocational education can also be dealt a death blow if government established a direct link between vocational schools with formal academic institutions to make vocational training mainstream. In China, thousands of vocational institutes support hundreds of thousands of primary and secondary schools by offering courses on labour practices and professional skills. The country also examines both academic knowledge and vocational skills. This simultaneous blend of vocational and academic education contributes greatly to the individual development, economic growth and social progress of China.

Uganda should also collaborate with China on vocational education under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China cooperates with many countries and international organisations in vocational education with over 400 vocational colleges receiving tens of thousands of international students. Our country should use the opportunity of friendship with China to exchange students to learn and replicate China’s successful vocational education practices.

The Chinese goods filling up shelves in shops across Uganda are designed and manufactured by graduates from China’s vocational schools who are skilled in manufacturing machinery and electronics. Although China generally shares the negative stereotypes associated with vocational training in Uganda, it resembles Germany in enrolment with almost 50% of Chinese students attending vocational schools.

Many people accuse the Ugandan government of dictatorship. If the state has an ounce of repression in its institutional muscle, I wish it could use it to enforce compulsory enrolment in vocational schools to equip Ugandan children with employable skills to support our country’s development agendas. This is the sure way to delegitimise and eradicate opposition – haha.

The author is a senior research fellow at the Development Watch Centre.

 

Rethinking Africa’s Education Systems: Lessons from China

Posted on by Nnanda Kizito Sseruwagi

Let me first caveat the fact this is a sweeping generalization as far as reference to “Africa’s education systems” is concerned. But I believe the generalization will still meet some nuance in this article.

Most African countries (especially Sub-Saharan) maintain a varied mixture of traditional and colonial/European/Western schooling systems. By their very nature, our education systems generally lack domestic responsiveness to address our societies’ unique historical, contemporary, social and future realities. This is due to their unmindful inheritance of formal education structures which were relinquished to us at the dawn of independence, without reassessing the intentions that informed the colonial design of education in Africa. Besides this, other factors such as epidemics, humanitarian crises and other development challenges continue to bear negatively on our children’s schooling.

Often, when action is championed to do something to address our education challenges, it is still spearheaded by external actors like the United Nations which sets a cookbook of Millenium Development Goals which every country should pursue. Of course, this is not to say no fruits have been born from this. Millions of children have been enrolled in school continent-wide through adoption of UN Programmes and support from UN agencies like the World Food Programme which provides meals in schools to combat hunger-related dropouts.

However, I think so much more would have been done if our governments keenly rethought, redesigned and reimplemented their education systems.

I’ll draw inspiration from one of the most recently poor, underdeveloped, famine-stricken, disease-affected, resource-constrained countries which paid clinical attention to their education and now boasts global excellence in almost all indices measuring academic excellence – China.

Estimates from 2022 showed that Uganda’s adult literacy rate (the percentage of people aged 15 and above who have basic reading, writing, arithmetic and understanding) was 80.59%. in contrast, China’s literacy rate upon the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 was estimated between 20 and 40%. As of 2021. The country’s literacy rate was estimated at 99.83%  It took a great investment of thought and resources to change the course of literacy in their country.

Currently, China is among the biggest investors in academic research. Every year, millions of students graduate in science and engineering from Chinese universities, including thousands of international students. They surpassed the United States in 2017 with the highest number of scientific publications. It also ranks topmost in most international STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) championships.

This is not by luck or coincidence. When China emerged out of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), it redesigned its education system to focus on economic modernization. Few if any African countries seem to understand or act with the understanding that there is intersectionality between education and economic transformation. China understood this early and highly prioritized the development of scientific and technical knowledge as well as training skilled personnel to realize it economic modernization agenda.

Needful to add, the pursuit of scientific studies excellence did not undermine humanities. Literature and the arts were also highly revived, which explains the world-wide appeal of Chinese cultural expression through movies.

The country has also keenly responded to climate change, with its Education Ministry formally implementing environmental education content in the school curriculum from early primary through to high school since 2003.

In order to satisfy their country’s industrialization and urbanization, the country also instituted higher vocational schools, secondary skill schools and job-finding centers. These institutions tailor the skills they equip workers with to address the urgent needs of China’s modern manufacturing and service industries.

Capital shortages to highly finance education is expected. However, like in China, alternative forms of education especially at higher levels can be embraced. Some institutions in Africa already implement online and long-distance learning, but we need to inform more people about this possibility. Spare-time and part-time learning can also go a long way in onboarding low-skilled youth who did not get a chance to study due to high resource constraints in formal arrangements.

China has also embraced the opportunity of using education to cause social change, specifically by making it compulsory for all universities to teach literature that encourages the integration of the country’s ethnic minorities and end discrimination.

It is difficult, almost impossible to develop a country without getting it right with education. But we can’t get it right if we do not think through it. If we keep rolling the machine, churning out graduates and drop-outs who have undergone a rusted, inherited, unexamined system. We need to press the reset button, get on the drawing board and think Africa’s education systems anew.

The author is a senior research fellow at the Development Watch Centre.

China-Uganda 60 years of Diplomatic Relations

Posted on by Admin

China and Uganda have a long diplomatic history dating back to the post-independence era. China is among the few countries that recognized Uganda as sovereign country just days after independence. Since then, Beijing has been cooperating well with Uganda, offering Kampala support in different sectors that we cannot discuss the journey of Uganda’s socio-economic development without mentioning the role of China.

In education sector, China continues to do a tremendous work offering training opportunities to different Ugandans at different levels. By end of 2021, Beijing had offered Ugandans hundreds of undergraduate and postgraduate scholarships and over 5000 Ugandans benefited from China’s short course training opportunities covering different key areas such as agriculture, medical care, infrastructure, information and technology among others.  China is also collaborating with African universities funding research and other learning opportunities. Makerere University’s Confucius institute is among the many examples. Aware that human capital and well-educated and skilled people are essential to facilitate development of the country, one cannot discuss development of Uganda’s education sector and human capital development without mentioning China’s contribution.

In the field of agriculture, China has been playing a key role for more than 40 years. In 1973 and 1987, China invested and established the Kibimba Rice Scheme (Now Tilda Uganda) and Doho Rice Schemes which have increased rice production and provided employment opportunities to many Ugandans. Additionally, the South to South Co-operation has boosted agriculture in Mbarara, Kabale, Amuria, Wakiso, and Budaka. Agricultural technology demonstration hubs have been established in Kabale to boost horticulture. China has also been supporting fish farming by funding the construction of the Wakawaka fish landing site and the Kajjansi Aquaculture Training and Development Centre which is a national center for aquaculture research in Uganda. This has led to increased and sustained fish production.

In 2009 under the South-South Cooperation (SSC), in coordination with United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), China launched FAO-China South-South Cooperation (FAO-China SSC) and established FAO-China Trust Fund. China invested $30 million in this program to to support agriculture in Uganda. China has since been supporting this program injecting $100 million in 2015 and 2021 for phase II and phase III respectively.

During phase II of China-FAO SSC, China sent 47 agricultural experts and technicians have to train Ugandans in the same field. During the expert’s two year stay in Uganda, they trained many Ugandans and helped to improve technologies used to in farming of various crops such as rice, foxtail millet, maize, grapes, apples and cherry tomatoes, as well as animal reproduction.

In energy sector, China’s contribution in Uganda’s energy is also visible. The Karuma dam hydropower station with capacity of 600 MW which under construction in Kiryandongo District is an example of China’s contribution in Uganda’s energy sector. The project is 85% funded by China’s Exim Bank and Uganda government is meeting the remaining 15 percent. The project is being constructed by a Chinese firm Sinohydro Corporation and is expected to be completed in June 2023. Isimba power station which became operational in 2019 was also funded by with a loan from China’s Exim Bank. Karuma and Isimba hydropower plants are identified in Uganda’s Vision 2040 as key projects to Uganda’s economic development.

In infrastructure development, China directly funded US $ 350 million for the construction of the Kampala-Entebbe express highway, which is the first express highway in Uganda. The expressway is a 51km, four-lane, dual carriage toll road linking Kampala to Entebbe airport. The stated intention of the highway was to; reduce congestion and increase the commercial viability of the Greater Kampala Metropolitan area, improve mobility and reduce travel times and vehicle operating costs, and provide better access to local facilities for communities and jobs.

The expressway has helped to improve mobility and travel times to the airport. The US $ 350 million loan will be paid in 13 years and current statistics from Uganda National Roads Authority indicate Ugandans have embraced using the road with average daily passages of 20,000 which is far higher than projected daily passage which UNRA had put at 13,000 passages.  This also means daily collections have risen which is a good sign that the road can sustain itself in terms of maintenance and paying back construction loan. Indeed, Joy Nabasa the spokesperson of Egis which was hired to maintain the road collecting the toll on behalf of UNRA recently told journalists that the number of passages is increasing daily. Last month, media reports indicated that the road toll had collected 13 billion shillings in 4 months alone.

Good road network is key in transportation of goods and services which is key for development. As two Chinese say; “Better roads lead to better life.” and “Build roads if you want to get rich” with more good road network, Uganda’s social-economic growth and match to middle-income status is a matter of time.

In health sector, China continues to play a key role in supporting Uganda’s health sector. For example, as a result of good relations between the two countries, China funded the construction of China-Uganda Friendship hospital at Naguru. The hospital offers health services to people, for instance, paediatrics, gynaecology, dental, and laboratory services.

On 10th June this year, a team of Chinese medical personnel arrived in the country and will stay in Uganda providing medical services to citizens. Since 1983, China has been sending a team of doctors and experts to help work with Ugandans in extending medical serves to Ugandans.,

In the wake of COVID-19, China has supported Uganda in the fight against the pandemic. China donated COVID-19 test kits to boost efforts against the virus. Additionally, Beijing donated up to one million doses of COVID-19 vaccines.

Considering the positive contribution, the two countries have witnessed over the last 60 years, it is a living a testimony that China and Uganda are good comrades, good equal partners and good brothers always working hand shoulder to shoulder with major aim of building a community of shared future and prosperity for mankind. Considering enormous opportunities that comes with this brotherly relation should be natured by people of both countries. This to happen, as a Chinese saying goes, “amity between the people holds the key to state-to-state relations,” with the bilateral relations between our countries were elevated to the level of Comprehensive Cooperative Partnership three years ago in late June 2019, our two peoples must guard these relations jealously.

Vianney Sebayiga is a research fellow at Development Watch Centre and a Student at the Kenya School of Law.