NRM using UPE and USE to mock Ugandans

NRM using UPE and USE to mock Ugandans
The Mouthpiece — 18 June 2011

Uganda is an interesting country. Interesting in a sense that many Ugandans are docile and have chosen to adopt an I don’t care attitude even when they pay taxes through the nose. They have chosen to leave Museveni and his cronies mismanage their country. The political leaders who ordinarily are supposed to be servants have turned themselves into masters and the other citizens who ordinarily are supposed to be masters have been turned into subjects.

One of the reasons why I like my area MP Maj. Gen Kahinda Otafire is because he has no pretence. He tells exactly what is on the ground. On the popular KFM Hot-seat hosted by Charles Mwanguhya, I listened to Otafire sing praises for the NRM regime over Universal Primary Education (UPE) and Universal Secondary Education (USE). Through the host, I informed the General that government remits less than Shs 2000 for each pupil under UPE and that parents top up not less than Shs 10,000 and that government again remits a paltry Shs 41,000 for a student under USE and I added, this is foolery. In response, Gen Otafire said, “If that gentleman has money, let him take his children to private schools”. He said, UPE and USE were introduced to help those who cannot afford. The General further said, there was a time when government didn’t pay a penny for USE and UPE crowning his argument with the common cliché “half a loaf is better than none at all”.

First, for the information of Otafire and his ilk, Obote II regime used to give free exercise and textbooks, pens, pencils, mathematical sets and chalk all of them labeled “Property of the Government of Uganda, Not for Sale”. All we have seen with the current regime is mere lip service to the education sector – be it primary education, secondary education or higher education.

When the host asked him whether they were not creating an aristocracy, he asked whether the Queen takes her children to the same schools with the commoners. This is exactly why I like Otafire. If UPE and USE work, let the ministers take their children to the UPE and USE schools. Otherwise the truth of the matter is UPE and UPE schemes are Bona bakone. True, Ugandans have become intellectually stunted with UPE and USE. In fact, a senior lecturer in one of Ugandan universities said, University students cannot express themselves in English.

As we moan and groan UPE and USE, it has emerged that Primary Teachers Colleges have been closed because the government has not disbursed operational funds to these colleges. Who are the losers? Ordinary Ugandans. Why is the money to sponsor students on the statehouse scholarship scheme always available? Who qualifies for the statehouse scholarship scheme? If Ugandans don’t wake up from their slumber and demand what rightfully belongs to them, then we are destined for doom.

Why, in a multiparty dispensation, should one party use taxpayers’ money to build capacity for the political party cadres through statehouse scholarship schemes? To make matters worse, not all NRM card-holding members have access to such opportunities. Ultimately, you find that the beneficiaries are from the same party, same region, same ethnic group and sometimes same district or same clan. I am quite sure that speaking about these issues raises many people’s body hairs but as the Anglican Common Book of Prayer says, we are enjoined to constantly speak the truth, boldly rebuke vice and patiently suffer for the truths’ sake.

The right to education is enshrined in Article 30 of the 1995 Uganda constitution. But also the international human rights instruments that Uganda has ratified stress the right to education and emphasise that higher education shall be accessible on the basis of merit. These include inter alia Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR, 1948), Article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR, 1966), Articles 28 and 29 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC, 1989), Article 10 of the Convention on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW, 1979), Articles 1, 2 and 5 of the International Covenant on Elimination of All forms of Racial Discrimination, 1969) and UNESCO Convention Against Discrimination in Education.

It is understood that the international human rights instruments stipulate that elementary education shall be free and higher education accessible on the basis of merit. Today, merit doesn’t work. Museveni is building a plutocracy other than a democracy. With UPE and USE, the NRM is simply mocking Ugandans.

Meanwhile, I have learnt that after failing to exterminate me physically through all the dirty tricks they have used against me in the past since 2008, the NRM is determined to frustrate me by even denying me employment opportunities including in the private sector. But I have told them that if that happens, I will go to the village, start a retail shop, start a community-based organisation and study properly the problems the people on the grassroots suffer. This will actually broaden my relevance because I will step into the people’s shoes and under no circumstances shall I be gagged. Whether I am in Kampala or upcountry, I will continue speaking and writing. The most precious asset I have is my conscience and I state without any fear of contradiction that I would rather die than divorce my conscience.

vnuwagaba@gmail.com