Children missing out on Education

By Jonas Mbabazi

January 15, 2015, Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) released Primary Leaving Examination (PLE) results. UNEB reported that out of a total of 604,971 candidates who registered for last year’s PLE exams, 78% were UPE beneficiaries. 

The achievements made in UPE programme are phenomenal.  Yes, there has been a steady increase in enrolment in primary schools over the last 15 years. Many children have been able to “go to school” as a result of the UPE programme since 1997.

We should not forget that the completion rates of these     children have always remained miserably low.  But even then, what skills does a P.7 graduate possess other than reading and writing? The question which every stakeholder should ask at the end of the day is “what does this education have to offer our children?” The schools are coaching children to cram and pass tests and exams without subjecting them to reason, innovation and creativity. The methods of teaching are archaic but what can we do differently to make teaching more practical and challenging to the children so that they use their brain to think and solve problems instead of being incapacitated.

I must say, the methods of instruction limit the horizons of our little ones. With the existing disconnect between the curricula, mode of instruction and the social context, our children will continue to be “mis-educated.” The children are usually driven by “what the teacher says is right” and are incapacitated at this level to ask more potent and astute questions. This has therefore driven most children if not all them to shallow and unimaginative thinking and their reason has been largely assaulted.

When I think about the nations’ education system, a myriad of questions evade my mind. Using the current potential and resources our country has, what can we do to make our education different -given the level of global competitiveness? So, what will it take to turn around the whole education system in Uganda? What will it take to stop the erosion of our children’s minds and the quality of their critical and creative thinking? What will it take to ignite and nurture their desire to be authentic in thinking and to advance in innovations in science and improve our technology?

This will require constructive engagement and multiple systemic actions: we need to transform the way the children are being taught, especially in science subjects. The science subjects should be kept relevant to the pupils’ environments so that the children are able to see it, feel it and think about it. There is need to exploring new forms of teaching, learning and assessment, to guide educators and policy makers.

It is important that the learners are immersed in the knowledge, skills and habits of innovation and entrepreneurship, ethical inquiry and creative problem finding and solving. I will not hesitate to say that innovations should be ignited among the learners and sustained. The language of instruction should be uniform across the board so that practical things are taught, understood, spoken and felt by the children in the country.

We must all recognise and appreciate that children enter school with instinctive reasoning, innate curiosity and the ability to discuss and generate hypotheses and do experiments.  That is human nature. These abilities need to be developed further, so that the learners are able to interrogate their environment in case of any anomalies or any unclear circumstances.  These abilities need to be developed further so that the children in schools are able to solve certain problems with in their environment and later become productive and responsible citizens.

In the words of Dr. Stephanie Pace Marshall, “to educate our children…requires their immersion in meaning, not memory; engagement, not transmission; inquiry, not compliance; exploration, not acquisition; personalization, not uniformity; interdependence, not independence; collaboration, not competition and trust, not fear”.  

The writer is a researcher