Prime
To survive the future, Uganda will have to find the solutions that worked before 1986
Benjamin Rukwengye
What you need to know:
- The removal of the bar of excellence has meant that anybody without the qualifications but with the right connections can get to the top
This week, any misplaced delusion that President Museveni wasn’t planning to stick around for the long haul was put to rest. From the looks of it, this relationship can only end the way marriages were meant to.
It is hard to tell what the next few years will look like for Uganda but what is certain is that there will be an overabundance of uncertainty. A lot of what is manifesting as public service paralysis has to do with the abysmal work that has gone into human capital development. We just don’t have enough qualified people who know what job must be done or how. Even the few who know are crowded out by the duplicity and the hundreds of lackeys.
A friend and respected educator once posited that Uganda’s education system is about 30 years behind where it should be. It is not an illogical deduction. Early this year, together with Dinah Achola, a friend and colleague at Boundless Minds, we held a series of topical conversations focusing on the education sector. One of them spotlighted Namasagali College, which was once the jewel of Uganda’s education crown.
We hosted old students on an Twitter Space, who shared their memories of the school and its charismatic leader, Fr. Damian Grimes. There is not enough space for us to go into the glowing exploits of the now-struggling college. However, the conversation helped us to understand why the school – and many others like it – had fallen on such hard times.
Namasagali is one of the tens – probably hundreds – of schools that are on life support even when the expectation would be that things are supposed to be getting better. What many of them had was the presence of larger-than-life leaders who inspired their staff and students to achieve the highest possible goals. It is the paradox of Uganda. Better economic fortunes, a much larger population, exposure to the world, and the proliferation of technology, have somehow not translated into improved quality education.
The general feeling is that young people coming out of our schools – at least the few who stay in and don’t drop out aren’t up to scratch. The drop in human capital development is as astounding as it is evident. Take the recently dismissed Kampala Capital City Authority top officials and the ministers who superintend over Kampala – and should face the music as well.
Their crime is not acting to negate the disaster that was the Kiteezi garbage landfill collapse that led to the loss of innocent lives.Yet you look at them and wonder how they ended up in those jobs and if they were the most qualified for them. The buck, of course, stops with the appointing authority because they wouldn’t be there without him. The removal of the bar of excellence has meant that anybody without the qualifications but with the right connections can get to the top. Mostly, it has negated the need to invest in human capital development because there is no point in it.
Recruiters in the private sector continue to complain about the quality of talent available to them – without trying to invest in developing it. Across the government, there are only a few pockets of inspired, innovative, and aspirational leadership that have clarity on what needs to be done.
The rest are politically connected prayer warriors too afraid to even ask “How high?” when told to jump.So, back to Fr. Grimes and his educator peers. Like Ugandans say, “How did they do it?” Well, they focused on inculcating a value system through which standards and expectations were set and met. How much of that is left today?
Mr Rukwengye is the founder, Boundless
Minds. [email protected]
