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Adult education: Solution to most of Uganda’s problems
What you need to know:
We seem so immune that nothing will take away our happiness. The abductions, corruption scandals, disappointments and every other thing will not threaten us
Uganda is probably synonymous with challenges. We have grown used to and have adapted to many of them so that they never threaten us; the citizens.
We actually make fun of many of them and have come up with phrases like “Ki Uganda kinyuma!” Translated as the Uganda film is interesting.
“Being Ugandan is a fulltime job,” “I abandoned my job to follow your stories,” “Uganda olemwa,” and many other phrases have lately dominated social media.
We seem so immune that nothing will take away our happiness. The abductions, corruption scandals, disappointments and every other thing will not threaten us.
Opposition strength continues to wither too that Ugandans now make fun of Opposition leaders. After sharing a difficult moment with a colleague, it never scares when a “Bikwase Kyagulanyi” phrase is all they bring out. Simply put, we are happy people and I pray to live longer and see what will break our hearts as Ugandans.
Although our problems require solutions, sharing them becomes more like lamenting. A politician back home became popular because of his use of “closing the book of lamentations and going to acts”.
In his opinion, a time to complain was done and actions would guide his leadership. You cannot believe that the electorates got tired of him also and ditched him. Will we live this life? The answer is no.
We must seek a long lasting solution and adult education seems the way forward. Our understanding of adult education seems shallow, even to the elite, that we quickly mistake it for adult literacy.
While it involves adult literacy it is not entirely about it. I got to know of our shallow understanding of adult education when a friend asked “why have you chosen to study adult education?”
Almost everyone has gone to school. Will you have people to teach?”
That was after I had been awarded an Erasmus Mundus scholarship to study an International Master in Adult Education for Social Change. His belief was that I was training to teach literacy to adults.
On close examination of the problems of our land, you will actually realise that our challenges emanate from ignorance, lack of skills, lack of humanness, selfishness, and such others. A person will be tortured while another looks on.
Citizens will make fun of activists. Politicians will bribe voters and get elected. Poor quality materials will be given to intended beneficiaries. On some occasions, we feel so weak that we cannot rise up to any challenge.
When you read about adult education, you understand that it is clearly what we need. Guided by Knowles’ andragogy theory, adult education/learning is driven by six principles.
These, according to Knowles et al (2011) are: the learner’s need to know, self-concept of the learner, prior experience of the learner, readiness to learn, orientation to learning, and motivation to learn.
Adult education seeks to develop competent, curious, critical citizens for developing just, equitable and democratic societies. This should clearly be spelt out in the country’s adult education policy and programmes, and funding for such programmes should be taken as priority.
The countries we admire actually took to adult education and are now better in many aspects. They have programmes to follow up on their dropouts to make them productive, for without such citizens, the country will always suffer.
I am aware the government has had some programmes but how are they formulated? Do they take care of the interest of citizens? How are they administered? Are they in all regions?
My opinion is that we need to carefully think through the many programmes, do research to establish how effective/ineffective they have been, bring technical people on board and map a better strategy for the country.
Makerere and Kyambogo universities have Adult Education courses and the professors there could guide the country in this regard. A better country will depend on the type of citizens we have. Vulnerable citizens that can easily be bribed by politicians to ascend to positions will not take us far.
Mugizi Rwabiita Felix
Ireland fellowship alumnus, Erasmus Mundus scholar
