By Bob Kisiki
The truth is, life as we knew it up to February 2020, may never recur. Sad reality.
Besides the fact that we do not have the slightest idea how much longer we have to contend with the rampaging coronavirus, we cannot assume that the world is seated under some shade, waiting for the word “Open!” from the powers that be, so we can, in the words of two-time former president of Uganda, Dr Apollo Milton Obote, “begin from where we stopped.”
The world is moving on. Trends are phasing out and others coming onto the scene. Demands on certain spheres of society are mutating. Organisations are changing the way they do business.
Heck, even the social, economic, political and even physical environment is changing. So what makes us think that when we finally return to some form of normal, whatever that normal will look like, we’ll be resuming from where we stopped?
On the education scene here in Uganda, a lot has changed. From March 2020, when the Government declared the very first lockdown, no school, college or university has operated at full capacity. Besides, some institutions have not had face-to-face classes since. Funding mechanisms changed, so even the way services are provided changed. In short, we are living in different times and you have to accept it and adjust. Have you considered that besides the three to four weeks some children had been at school at the beginning of last year, they have not been to school again? How much longer will this go on? We are talking kindergarten children up to Primary Three. Just when Primary One to Three were about to resume school, the country was clamped up again! As a parent, what are you doing to ensure that they no longer suffer loss and stand a chance at life at some point?
Some people are depending on the promise by the Government to provide electronic materials for their children. The truth is that these materials would only make perfect sense if the curriculum and entire education system had been adjusted to suit this mode of delivery. But where you have traditional material delivered by traditional teachers in a traditional manner; with only the medium shifting from the classroom to the mobile phone, something is lost. And we must also know that some of these methods do not favour all families across the nation.
Consider, for instance, this scenario, which is a real-life family I know. They live up-country. The father studied up to Senior One, while his wife (the children’s mother) is a Primary Four dropout. They have four children, the oldest is in Primary Six and the youngest in Primary One. Now consider the appeal the Government made recently, that as we await government support, parents should keep teaching their children… Keep thinking that through. Look, as you wait for whatever else might be on the way, please engage your child in practical, non-formal education. This dependency on formal education leading to formal employment is detrimental. As the world shifts to new heights, only people with practical skills will survive. Only people who can do things no one else is doing around them, or doing common things in a different, better way, will handle. Prepare your child to be that way, in the interim.
The writer is a parenting counsellor and a professional teacher
