Who is raising Uganda’s children?

The more important question, however, is not whether children should eventually enter the digital world, because they will. The real question is whether they will be prepared when they do.

That question reaches far beyond smartphones or social media. It touches parenting, education, public policy, faith and the kind of society Uganda hopes to build over the coming decades.

For more than 30 years, Uganda has invested heavily in expanding education. Universities have multiplied. School enrolment has increased dramatically. Competence based education and training is encouraging learners to develop practical skills, creativity and problem-solving alongside academic knowledge. Those achievements deserve celebration.

Yet, another conversation has quietly begun. Teachers speak about shrinking attention spans and the challenge of assessing work produced with AI. Parents worry about digital addiction, cyberbullying and the gradual disappearance of meaningful family conversations. Employers increasingly acknowledge that technical competence, valuable as it is, must be accompanied by integrity, resilience, collaboration and sound judgement.

Those concerns may appear unrelated. Taken together, they point towards a deeper national question.

How do we prepare young people not simply to succeed in a digital world, but to flourish within it?

UNESCO has said education systems must prepare learners not only for employment, but also for responsible citizenship and life-long learning. Closer to home, the National Council for Higher Education has consistently encouraged universities to graduate professionals whose competence is matched by ethical responsibility, leadership and service. Their message is echoed by employers across Uganda, many of whom now say that while technical knowledge opens the door to opportunity, character determines whether that opportunity is sustained.

Perhaps the greatest risk facing Uganda is not that technology is advancing too quickly, It is that our conversations about raising children may not be keeping pace. Our children are growing up in two worlds, and we must prepare them for both: the physical world and the digital world, which offers unprecedented opportunities for learning, creativity and innovation. The same world also exposes them to misinformation, manipulation and influences capable of shaping identity long before adulthood arrives.

History teaches that societies rarely recognise defining moments while they are living through them. They usually understand them much later. Uganda cannot afford that luxury.

This growing awareness lies behind the vision consistently championed by the First Lady and Minister of Education and Sports, Mrs Janet Museveni. Through the Emerging Leaders Programme and her wider engagement with education, she has repeatedly called upon the nation to complement knowledge and skills with integrity, purpose and responsible citizenship.

“Together, let us invest in our youth and instil in them the values of integrity, resilience and purpose,” Mrs Museveni has said, recognising that the future belongs not only to knowledgeable young people, but to men and women whose knowledge is anchored in character.

This vision does not compete with the important work already undertaken by schools, universities, government agencies or organisations promoting online safety. It complements it.

No single institution can prepare our children for the digital age. The Emerging Leaders Programme is making a national call. At critical times like this, Maama Janet has always reminded us that it takes a whole village to raise a child. We seek to rally each other, hold hands and seal the gaps by starting a national conversation: how do we fast-track the preparation of the net citizens? How do we involve the parents, teachers, religious institutions, communities, policymakers, children and the youth without living out anyone?

The conversation must shift from protection to preparation, from managing technology to forming the kind of citizens who will eventually lead families, organisations, communities and the nation.

That responsibility belongs to all of us. Every generation inherits a responsibility that history eventually remembers. Our grandparents expanded education because they believed literacy would transform lives. Our parents widened access to schools because they understood that knowledge creates opportunity.

Our generation has inherited a different responsibility.

We must ensure that while Uganda’s children become increasingly connected to the digital world, they do not become disconnected from the values, relationships and sense of purpose that make life meaningful. If we succeed, the country will gain far more than a generation of digitally competent young people. It will raise citizens who possess the wisdom to use knowledge responsibly, the integrity to exercise leadership faithfully and the resilience to navigate a rapidly changing world without losing sight of what matters most.

Yes, we need targeted job creation, increased financial literacy programmes and stricter enforcement of responsible gaming policies to protect our future, but more urgently, we need to foreground the education of the heart.

We have for long concentrated on educating the head for exams; more recently, we revised the primary and secondary school curriculum to focus on educating the hands and now, we must mainstream the education of the heart and the feet.

As the American civil rights leader, Dr Martin Luther King Jr, once observed, “intelligence plus character; that is the goal of true education,” more than half a century later, those words speak with renewed urgency.

Uganda’s future will not be determined only by the technologies its children inherit. It will be determined by the kind of human beings they become.

We must heed Maama Janet’s cry: “A nation’s soul lies in its human resources. A broken people yield a fragile nation, but a thriving populace builds a vibrant, enduring society.”

The writer is the former editor-in-chief of Vision Group