Graduands urged to remain relevant

Nov 11, 2017

The UCU Mbale campus graduated 355 students.

EDUCATION l UCU GRADUATION

Retired Justice James Ogoola has told university graduands to treat their graduation as a right of passage from dependency to full personal responsibility and change of roles.

Ogoola was speaking as chief guest at the 18th graduation ceremony (Part 5) of Uganda Christian University (UCU) - Mbale University College at Agape Ground in Mbale town where 355 graduands 55 percent of them females were awarded certificates and diplomas and conferred degrees in various academic disciplines.

He likened the graduation time to the Bamasaaba traditional initiation ritual from boyhood to manhood in which a candidate has to endure the pain from a sharp knife during circumcision (Imbalu).

Ogoola challenged graduates to profitably use the knowledge and skills acquired from studies at university to look after their own personal needs as they serve society with diligence and integrity.

In his remarks, the Archbishop of the Church of Uganda the Most Rev. Stanley Ntagali who is the UCU chancellor urged graduands to learn the art of living in the digital age and have the desire to leave the society a better place than they found it.

Earlier, the UCU vice chancellor, the Rev. Can. Dr. John Senyonyi said higher education must make a person a thinker and not a facsimile product adding that the purpose of education is to give a person adaptability and dynamism to think through new problems by being innovative and inventive.

PIC: Archbishop Ntagali and Oogola (centre) arrive for the graduation ceremony


"An education for the sake of being educated wearies the flesh. Some people with doctorate degrees fall back on their past knowledge to address future problems. Their inability to answer today's problems with today's solutions bespeaks their underdeveloped intellectual engagement," Senyonyi said.

He urged the graduands to grow in all faculties, be current in their spiritual, social and emotional fitness adding that as graduates they should be stewards of God's creation and keep integrity in all things.

Addressing the congregation, the university college Principal the Rev. Dr. Stephen Mungoma, said graduands step out into a university of life that has no walls and no gates and where there is time table and no lecturers who give course works and exams but a place where one is taught the art of living outside the academic environment.

Mungoma said self- discipline through setting goals, preparedness for opportunities that come one's way and making oneself useful and relevant to society are key qualities every graduate must possess to sell their skills.

He told graduands to retrain whenever an opportunity opens to them so as to remain relevant relating a story of Kodak Company that collapsed after its owners did not take heed to move from making photography films to digital cameras that have brought a revolution in the photography industry.

"Many times, we want others to do things for us or provide a conducive environment that favours us. You might have to be the one to create an environment for productivity. In whatever condition, make yourself useful and do not sit and wait for your parents to feed you but find a way of working with them to feed yourself and the family even if it means getting a hoe and going to the garden to dig," Mung'oma advised. 
 

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