ON EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT

This blog today is specifically dedicated to John Paul,whose gratitude has got me sited here on the computer today.Thank you JP!!!
This week I happened to attend to important public dialogues and think tanks one on how to find peaceful means to prevent strikes in universities through inter university collaboration and another on how business finance is or is not a  hindrance to the growth of small and medium enterprises. A lot was said and a lot was learnt,If I have learned a lot on Uganda's progress it was in these so many think tanks,debates and public dialogues that I have graciously attended over the years through my life at campus but what is the gist of education in this discourse today.

Just to go back to the basics, the Millennium Development Goals that are set to be achieved by all signatory countries by 2015 have a pillar on Promoting Universal Primary education by 2015.And if we have followed the discussions around UPE in Uganda you may concord with me that we are dilly darling and this bitter truth has kept us in denial of the true state of our primary schools both the UPE and government schools   (I am deliberately leaving out the secondary schools that are no less in the same state) So our government has continuously used the education system as a winning ticket in all election campaigns and some how they pass the bar with the voters(legally or illegally) suffice to say it is overwhelmingly true that no other school infrastructure has been built by government after the Obote 2 regime shocking on one part since were promised "fundamental change".Today as we speak children in many UPE school across the country stay hungry through the day and we claim they are at school learning,and teachers who with love for the practice and little pay come as late as 10:00am to teach their not so interested pupils.I could go on till the cows come home on the dire state of our UPE schools that are supposedly assumed to have the responsibility of reducing poverty and increasing development.

Suffice to say is the fact that to attain such an unrealistic goal is an insult to the Uganda populace(with all due respect to the heads that sat and thought so!).If I may but say,Countries that have  achieved poverty eradication and have attained sustainable development invested in education at all levels of learning and in a holistic manner,they invested in brain gain and pushed their citizens to the highest level of education and that created patriotism and a love for their country that kept them coming back even after attaining education in prestigious university known in the world.I use South Korea as my cadaver in this point,there was a time when South Korea had no university and we in Uganda has our Ivory tower Makerere University to show to the world today South Korea has some of the best universities and also humbly funds research project to our dying country.

Allow me say that no matter how many people we take through a lacking UPE system r even just take through primary level and we do not provide a quality and good education thereafter no development will have been attained at the end.A country's wealth is its people and what better way to develop a country than to invest in it populace and its education system.And educated person and go through life and survive the hurdles that would have thrown them back into poverty and it will take understanding the the human person is the driver of the development of his country to realize the need to invest in education at all levels of learning.
Now no matter what the GDP or the economics of our country says,investing the human person will by far remain the plausible if not the only plausible way to achieving a sustainable development because I know I have been educated and given a voice then surely I will educate those that come after me so that they too can be empowered.and may be in awestruck it could be a deliberate act of our nation and the custodian of our wealth(the government) to keep Ugandans in an ignorant and less educated state because that  makes it easy to rule an uneducated crowd,you then become their brain and only source of knowledge(thank God there is globalization,I could get an education else where if it failed in my own country)On a serious note,as long as we still flood our selves in the less educated zone and have more children born into a system of UPE that has delivered to fundamental change and no better brains to present the world with we are only but on a time bomb into the future,the future of our children and our children's children is at stake if the next generation happens to have more uneducated people than the educated one

Recommendations;
I could go on and curse the dark but I need to as well forward some important solutions that could help if my voice is just but heard among the many that have spoken in need to provide help for our great nation(not so great lately)
Education reforms,it has been said it is still going to be said but I would rather phrase it differently,The practical bit of education,ostensibly I would prefer a scrap of the last two years of high school and right out of junior high we send our students to Tertiary institution to learnt he practical skill and knowledge before they join college.The need in that is to spare the students in very remote areas to get practical intellect that could help them regardless of whether they make it to college or not. and consequently, they will know how to survive with a degree or with no degree.
Then intensely invest in the education sector form providing material for learning,to paying teachers and lectures(yes,I know this hurts the thieves in government)and also create a will that can lead to change,where there is a will there is always a way!This sound rather obnoxious because it is what has been said forever but may be all that is lacking is the will to cause change.
and last but not least is the need to invest in infrastructure,sometimes am appalled when our leaders stand and promise and fail to deliver ,that is the highest level of lack of integrity.Your word is the only thing that bare witness to you sometimes but if we can issue out lies as if it is a norm then we fail our moral fabric(if at all they still have one,anyway).
as I pen down or rather stop writing,I earnestly and continually hope for "fundamental change"for our education system at all levels so that it can also be part of the elements that will cause sustainable development in the long run.I will smile with admiration if even the little girl and boy in Amuru district could get the education that I am offered today.
For God and My Country

DEVELOPMENT AS WE KNOW IT

In a need to understand Uganda's situation in regard to development,I found myself wondering about all the elements that make up sustainable development and how far we have come as a country.well this was a thought that drove me from side stepping from the direction of my previous posts so that I could indulge in matters that keep me awake all night thinking of what my children will meet for a country in a few years from now....
So development as we know it is the first blog in a line of very many others that will follow suit in the next couple of months.
Recently in the pipeline of the media houses stories have ranged from political havoc and power struggles to social impunity and so much for bad news but what was disturbing was the lack of will power to say anything about the situations from the citizens of our nation...it then got me wondering,are we really independent as a country or are in denial of the chain hands and numb lips that we have become over time..apathy comes with a price and it is until we rise to the front of freedom that we Will have a country to offer our children with dignity and with love because then they will be masters of the journey they will take.

May be to  indulge you more, on issues of the Asian nationalities and the two different rape cases that happened in a period of two weeks difference,one would have expected a concerned citizenry but to my dismay Ugandans sat back and watched  the disdain go on..and then came our very politicised police that  took sides with the Pakistan men (am sure then stopped  being men when they raped a lady) and many other political figures that disgustedly defended that so called investors.So to say in countries were those fellows come from rape is punishable with death and yet at home we sweetheart with such offenders.
May be a case like that explains why we are stuck in underdevelopment...Our lack of zeal to act and our lack of motivation to dare and change the status quo of what things are today.

Most developed countries are what they are because their citizenry was daring enough to dare and question the status quo.Mediocrity has eaten up the ability for many of my people to rise above the ordinary..
we either enjoy being poor or rather we have chosen to let thing be for reason best known to God.
It baffles me to see our neighbours are shifting their standards of living as well as their development into a better phase but we sit back and admire or envy what they turned out to be.Kenya ha by far run a race we have not even dared to start....I marvel every time I sit out and analyse the dynamics of the Kenyan economy especially if it compared with our own..we probably stop seeing growth in our economy many years back and we are living on the sugar coated belief that we are progressing towards development. Development as we know it in Uganda is a bluff sorry to say the bitter truth but what better way to address issues of stagnation than to air them out regardless of the response they get.

So what should we do, I will tell you,how about we start with changing our attitude towards issues that affect our society and its moral fabric...if it means taking to the streets or to social media(which has more radical effect in the world lately) then we should use it to effect change in our society.A country is only a country if its citizenry play a role in turning it into one.We Can go on living in apathy,we are human and we need to be in touch with our humane system in order for us to grow and develop properly.We need to step out of mediocrity it should settle well with us not at all.Our  greatest asset is our brain and if we use it limited then we are bound to stay stuck in underdevelopment.
Remember, looking to the government for every little need fails us a people who ought to work hard and surface in your own efforts.The government is only custodian f our resources for a while and we should remember governments come and go but we are always here and we need to be able to survive even at the change of government.
If for anything lets us learn to question the status quo be interested in change and cause it...Rome was not built in one day.learning has never really ended,we could learn from practical examples like Kenya who slowly but surely is rising to a different level in development.we as the citizenry run the development process,we hold the radar and the wheel of our development for a future that is going to appreciate us.
our generation needs to set an example for the next so that we do not take this blessed nation into a recession or a backward sprawl because lately we look like we are headed that way.
May God who gave us this earth and the knowledge to use it to our benefit look down and smile not because he gave you what you have been praying for(which often is to remove the president from power).The Lord Almighty,has nothing t change apart from guiding you to use your knowledge and understanding to cause change and survive mediocrity.and that in the end will deliver our long awaited development.
We can change development(which in any sense in under development) as we know it.
For God and My Country.

FORGETTING YOU!!!!

When they say a man initiates and a woman responds....

It is sounds like the ideal and proper thing...until the heart of a lady breaks the rules of attraction....

He was my fantasy...my everything

To be totally honest...I was irrational and totally obsessed.

But I know I need to get over him ...and soon.

Yesterday I could barely eat while in my melancholic,

Fray music rocking,sitting in my room looking very romance novelty-trance.

And then today I went through school in an unenthusiastic apathetic trance like state.

Just...I want to get over you,

I know I need to,but I don't know if I can...and I certainly can't picture doing it without some strange not so brief stint of deeply melancholic teenage depressing heartache.

Please don't tell me just to take up a new hobby or hangout with friend more often because I have tried that and it hasn't worked!

I'm in far too deep for that!

They say time heals all wounds and soothes all memories.

The only issue is this...

Imagine it like a clock and you keep waiting for the time to arrive when it will be over...

As time goes by...I will get a firm understanding with myself,that this il al be a memory in the future,it will be over with.I will forget you.

MAY BE....JUST MAY BE

May be,we were born to be great;

May be,just may be;

May be,we were born for a time as this;

May be,just may be,

May be we were born to be the pillars of strength for the feeble ones;

May be,just may be,

May be, we were born to emulate Christ;

May be, just may be,

May be we were born to be the light for the darkness in the hearts of men;

May be, just may be,

Every one around u needs us in some way or another;

May be, just may be!!!