Uganda's education system must change if we are to develop - Museveni

Museveni said this during the closing ceremony of a 9-day ideological mindset change retreat for Head Teachers from the Greater North regions of West Nile, Lango and Acholi sub-regions at Kololo Ceremonial Grounds.

“Now that I have been joined by Headteachers, we are going to get our people out of sleeping (Niino). Where is the address of wealth and jobs to be found? The NRM has been telling you there are four ways namely; Commercial Agriculture with calculations, manufacturing, services and ICT. . Do this and you will change the society (social economic transformation) through business”, he said.

Education as stumbling block

Museveni noted that education is a key element in social-economic transformation but Uganda’s education system is colonial and thus a stumbling block to Uganda’s prosperity.

“The problem we have is that people have had colonial education. The type of education designed to make all of you clerks, those white-collar jobs. How can everyone be a clerk? What will you record? We shall have no farmer, no manufacturer, then what shall we record?” he asked.

He said this type of education only benefits Ugandans who travel abroad to do Kyeyo (odd jobs).

“People are not creating enough jobs here so you see in Africa people running away for kyeyo, therefore, we do not just need any education but the right type of education, the type that focuses on the creation of jobs and wealth in the four sectors,” he said.

The president then talked about European states which have overcame their own poor education systems. He noted the benefits of the Renaissance, a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterised by an effort to revive and surpass ideas and achievements of classical antiquity.

President talks about social-economic transformation Pulse

“France is a good example because that is where we had a clear case, by 1789, the French society had evolved from a three-class society to a four-class society; the Bourgeois living on profits, the Proletariat living on wages, the feudalists living on rent and the peasants living on their sweat minus what the landlord took,” he said.

“If you go to Europe today, there are no longer peasants, it has become a two-class society, the big manufacturers (Bourgeois) and the skilled working class (Proletariat). So, the problems of Africa have been perpetual, to have a peasant producing a peasant”, the president added.

He said that, with a relevant education system, Uganda shall transform from subsistence livelihoods to create wealth through commercial agriculture, manufacturing, services, and information and communications technology.