This year without a doubt has presented the strongest fears to humanity, and with it came a vivid manifestation of the emptiness of life and proved the need for humanity to think about things that make us one rather than divide us.
But regardless we moved! October is here and you too are still here. That in itself should help us understand that we have a bigger call to life than worry about life setbacks.
I have even a strong conviction that this is not going to be any different, it’s going to be tough of course and like that our failures and challenges will not be Unique but our resilience will be. How we pick up ourselves and denounce self-doubt, procrastination, and negativity will determine the far we go.
Even when we cannot go back and make a brand new beginning, we can start now and make a brand new ending; life is not about making a living but its just about living your making. It’s not by coincidence that October is here; I have a stronger suspicion that if you work on your self-image and stop squinting at your ambition you can then transcend your heritages of birth, nationality or religion and ultimately make the best out of yourself.
As we begin this new month, may we learn to live with one another and appreciate each other’s uniqueness just so we can build a generation that upholds humanity, well motivated and inspired to make this world a better place.
Hey June! The new month is here, and we too are here If one cared to know how the world operates, then one would know that the world certainly moves on yet we in most cases hesitate to do so. When we were young a few years back, we actually thought we were young and that we had time. A few months back we danced and celebrated the New Year; just like we have always done, we made year plans; we made promises and proclaimed this as our year. We told ourselves we would act different, that we would do away with procrastination, fear, and doubt and make it our business to believe in ourselves. Here we are, looking at our year plans and with utter pessimism gazing at our objectives, goals and targets. Here we are, watching ourselves spend all we had saved up. Here we are, worrying a lot about our future.
When all these want to break us, what seems true is that life has to move on. May is far spent, and June is right here. It’s a new beginning and is another chance given to us in order to revive the state of happiness between us and our families, friends and all humanity.
And to you June we shall say! And hope that! You present to us an opportunity to dare to be different, and dare to stand out and shine on. Come with sweet commitments that whether you are in our favor or against us, we will be there for one another, we will swim gallantly the ocean of life and somehow we will survive, and together we will thrive for we now well understand the worth of life
From You we will not ask to have just good times, for we well understand that life does not present such a menu to us. May and March taught us the hard way that for life to be life then it must have an intermixture of both good and bad times. So from you we expect some moments of trials and yes of tribulations, but what we choose is to refuse to be knocked down by hard moments. We will fall, but we will rise and move on. And remember! You find us troubled already. Please be an avenue through which we retrieve all that we have lost and gather all the treasures of blessings, help others by giving them smiles and happiness so every one can smile and celebrate the good times ahead. Let not any of your days go to waste, let every second count and let negativity and depression be a thing for your gone colleagues (may and March).
Break the chains of fear and doubt that have for long robbed us of our capacity to hold on, we well know that you come with many more challenges, but with bigger opportunities and greater successes. We cast away all the confusion that defines the past and hold on to our hopes, for we hope you come to replace all the odds with countless opportunities for us. And for those reasons, we embrace you with courage, not even afraid to accommodate change but open minded to new possibilities. You are indeed a perfect month for us to stop waiting to start living, to start reaching into the soul of every single moment and finding the magic contained in it.
The only hope we have is that we still have hope. Thank you, A blessed month friends
Life’s under no obligation to give us what we expect.
Today I woke up to the ugly truth, the reality of what we cry about of late but fear to approach with much more resilience. Strange as it may seem, that we do not wake up to pursue our daily endeavors like we did, that we do not wake up to catch up with friends like the gone days, that we do not pursue religion in the designated places like the norm was, that we cannot exercise our freedoms to walk about like we did. It sure is strange but not harrowing, even when we feel pressed to the wall, it is incumbent upon us to pick ourselves up and find opportunity in the challenge set before us lest we loose ourselves.
It is in such strenuous times that we realize how endowed humanity is. Amidst the difficulties that have made it next to impossible for humanity to physically meet, interact, share love, care and experiences; we are still connected and stronger in our indifferences like never before, we have continued to relate with our God even when we do not have to congregate, we have continued to extend love to our beloved ones even when we do not physically meet. This in itself provides us with reasons to get up and hope.
Many a time we worry about our jobs, our studies, our relationships, our wealth, our travel schedules, our pre-set plans and we in that regard continue to break up with our lives. It’s true that we have always fallen for our bodies and all those that complement them but Ironically forget to build a stronger relationship with our real selves. The times therefore provide a time so ample for us to reconcile our differences with our lives; introspect our lives and discover weather we live for a purpose for an unexamined life is not worth living. For starters, it is important to appreciate the fact that to live is to journey. And that life is a journey we pursue at birth. And just like any other, it’s made up of highs and lows. Along the way challenges are set before us however, how we appreciate these dares defines how we push on there after. Those who appreciate them easily pick up and move on but those who don’t, cry about them and suffer regrets there after.
It’s therefore moral for us to always look beyond every challenge only to find an opportunity or pick lessons for ourselves “ when things fall apart, if you cant pick up the pieces then pick the lessons” it is only when we understand such realities that we shall brag to have lived a life. Such times demand that we learn that beyond our minor differences, we are one people who could succumb to a similar challenge and be brought to our knees despite our might and the reverse is true “we could thrive together”. The times also trigger us to remember that no one knows tomorrow hence challenging us to cease whatever chance there is “procrastination kills ambition”. The times continue to prove that no one can ever have enough for themselves and that to co-exist is our earthly mandate lest we fall short of our divine aspirations. So as we continue to cry about the challenges before us, let us remember that its time to learn and unlearn a lot about a lot.
Its unfair for us to fold our arms and coil our legs to cry about the situation, we could do better. The situation could a mid wife a generation so endowed, a generation full of ideas, a generation so moral, a generation so loving and a generation whose ultimate mandate is to create a world that provides a leveled ground for each one to pull out their capacities and live up to their full aspirations. One could therefore renew their spiritual life during this time and mature into a better citizen of the world. This could be time to reconcile differences with those we don’t put up well with. This could be time to read a book and accumulate knowledge but similarly it could be time to write a book and preserve knowledge. It could be time to relate with family; it could be time for us to grow a skill, develop a talent and get out this better people.
In the face of uncertainty, in the face of trials and tribulations, could erupt an understanding that there is joy in focusing on things that bind us together than our differences, in the face of hopelessness and haplessness could erupt a resilience that we are not limited, that we are better than our weakness and no situation however bad should shutter our hope. This downtick could be an avenue for us to nourish our lives and get out of this period in the best versions of who we really are and to that end; a more sane world could emerge.
Folks let us not cry but try to gather our seemingly last ounce and announce ourselves great and strong on life stage.
As well stipulated in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable development, goal number four (4) to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. In this essay I am discussing the efforts to make education more inclusive and accessible for all youths including efforts of the youths themselves,
Inclusive education in all its entirety is a process involving the transformation of schools and other centres of learning so as to cater for all children including girls and boys, learners from ethnic minorities, those affected by diseases like HIV/AIDs and those with disabilities and learning difficulties hence inclusive education is not a marginal issue but its central to achievement of high quality education for all hence the realisation of the millennium and sustainable development goals of eradicating extreme poverty, achieving universal primary education and addressing global wicked problems especially climate change contributing to the broader goals of social justice and social inclusion.
In this essay I shall explicate on the notion by giving a bit of the history of education, highlight the status quo of education in line with the effort that are already underway to transform education and the more that can be done to transform education while being very comparative while using Uganda’s education system as our perimeter of reference as we benchmark other education systems across. However much there are efforts already underway, this essay intends to make a statement that a lot more can be done as well explicated there in below.
I intend to first consider the fact that education has a long history that can be traced over time and various schools of thoughts have defined education differently however we want to pivot our essay on the basis that education is the process of breeding, bringing up, rearing and training to lead forth, to take out, to rise up and erect or conduct learning which is the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, beliefs and habits literary meaning that an individual who goes through this process should come out as a wholly changed individual ( holistic)this therefore drives us to a number of questions; 1).Is the education in the 21st century inclusive? 2). Is it easily accessible to most of the young people?? These questions directly appeal mostly to the developing countries and they clearly speak to status quo of most of them. As reported by UNESCO that in all levels of education, broadly speaking, enrolment increased substantially for school age children and youths and much of this enrolment is as a result of the contribution of a number of stakeholders that is the governments, youth led organisations and the youth themselves. Citing Uganda as our area of focus, the Government established the UPE as an education policy as a commitment by the NRM Government to ensure that primary education is accessible to all social classes which saw the current enrolment of primary pupils rise to 8.4 million and yes the contribution of UPE to increase enrolment cannot be swept under the carpet however one would question the extent to which it has been a success.
Youth led organisations have equally backed such inclusive policies by doing a great deal of sensitisation easing government’s work, such as the Serve Uganda Initiative (SUI), Rich A Hand Uganda (RAHU), MasterCard foundation (BRAC) and Youth Alive Uganda which in accordance to their goals and objectives show utter interest in how the youth learn, what they learn and its impact on their lives.
The concept of transforming education is one that requires us to approach with contextual understanding and an understanding of the social, economic and ecological dimensions for to transform the education system varies according to the mentioned dimensions. Globally there is a wide spread concern about the factors that generate exclusion and this could be better addressed through the definitions and implementation of appropriate inter-sectoral policies focussed on the causes both outside and within education.
I in the first place cite the fact that education challenges should be tackled from a right based perspective, since each individual possess a fundamental right regardless of their differences to fully develop their potentials all this done to include the whole lot. To wholly include all youths from across, one must bear in mind that these young people have fundamental rights despite their differences and to boost each one’s potential is the ultimate goal of education. We therefore envision an education that conforms with the interests of the learners in a way that if a learner has great interest in playing soccer, mechanics or arts they should not be subjected to disciplines that do not conform with their interests, youth led organisations should speak louder about such inclusion for its the ideal inclusion the youth seek before the new industrial revolution is ushered in.
The other I suggest should be the expansion of early childhood care and education services, international research by global education organisations especially UNESCO justify the fact that for one to be wholly educated and for all to be fully included then one must be tapped right from infancy meaning early childhood care should be brought closer to all infants and it should relate closely to their capacities and interests. In this process this brings more of them close and finds the system relevant to them.
The expansion of basic education beyond primary schooling in order to include lower secondary education while catering concurrently for both equity and quality aspects in line with provision of high quality, non-formal education opportunities followed by possibilities for formal recognition of competences acquired in non-formal settings and forms of transition between formal and non-formal education. This closely relates with the fact that education should draw young people closer to their societies and help them realise that it’s ultimately their mandate to use education to impact societies from which they hail, the youth should therefore be at the fore front of championing and advocating for an education that includes them all despite their differences
This would though be better actualised with the adoption of more dynamic and diversified teaching / learning strategies and flexible curricular that can respond to the diversity of learning needs and if one must think about the curricular then one must not forget the language in which learning should be conducted and the improvement of teacher education and training programmes. One therefore might ask whether teachers are really given adequate skills to conduct a learning process that caters for diverse learners. Re-enforcing and re-considering in service courses that can better equip the teachers that are already in the field of teaching so that they are able to adapt to the changing environments that seek to include all.Overall, the initial outcomes of all these preparatory activities clearly indicate that fostering inclusion in both education and society is a common concern across countries and regions.
On the inclusiveness of the current education system is also another big subject of contestation keeping in mind that an inclusive education is one where every child is supported by their parents and by the community to develop a positive understanding of themselves and others, regardless of their differences, cultures and abilities and therefore one would wonder whether this is being actualised in most developing countries even when efforts are being put in place to ensure that even the marginalised groups of people in society are included in the education. Today we have realised efforts to pull particular groups of people closer to society giving them an active voice, place and identity through both direct and indirect processes for instance allowing the disabled, visually impaired, albinos and the socioeconomically disadvantaged to freely intersect with the rest in regards to accessing education. It is at this point that I want to shift our focus to what more can be done to transform our education, even when we concur with the status quo that education in the 21st century is favourably inclusive, it can be bettered by checking the procedure of realising this.
Conclusively, My essay directly speaks to the role of the youth, governments and all youth led organisations in line with a clear justification that an inclusive education is an ideal one, it is one that embraces diversity and so long as one lives, then one must conform with the forces of diversity since the world we live is a diverse one. In the essay, I give a sketchy background of education, we give the status quo of the global image of education and efforts underway in transforming education, we however pivot our thesis on the fact that even when various strategies have been laid, we still can do a lot and we still believe that when a more inclusive education is realised, then the 2030 sustainable development goals can be turned into reality as well stated there in above.
An American author of A Walk with Pursuit, Jason N. Versey,suggests that “it is the pursuit and attainment of political party power that divides and defines a nation. Not race,not religion, not national origin, not socioeconomic status, nor sexual orientation, no. These are all just sacrificial pawns of the political arena. If you want to know where common sense goes to die and where tribalism goes to be born, look no further than party politics.” That said, another scholar, Christopher Hitchens, while commenting on the 2008 united States of America general elections noted that “people who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan are the problem to begin with. One doesn’t banish this specter by invoking it. If I would not vote against someone on grounds of race or gender alone,then by the exact same token,I would not cast a vote in his or her identical reason. Yet, see how this obvious question makes fairly intelligent people say the most alarming and stupid things. It is based on such a background that I want to tackle the subject of ethnicity as far as politics in Africa is concerned. The fact of belonging to a particular race. You can no longer see or identify yourself solely as a member of a tribe, but as a citizen of a nation of one people working toward a common purpose. This is what Africans have failed to do. We are divided along the tribalistic sentiments. We have failed to come together for a common purpose. It’s very unfortunate. Sometimes one wonders whether we shall ever outgrow this cultural bigoted mentality. Partly,some argue, that such a sentiment should be blamed to our colonial and post colonial history, which facilitated tribalised ethnicity, politics,security, economy among others. We have constantly and fallaciously heaped collective guild or praise on the basis of this historical consciousness of ourselves that we have normalised. Besides, it’s absurd that we have built a society where people’s character is judged by their ethnicity and hardly by their own way (both positively and negatively): that even a complete stranger judges another by simply hearing their name-which they bundle with an entire ethnic group and dismiss or favour. The assumption that by knowing your ethnic group (name) one already knows you enough and your real attributes don’t count. And some of this ethnic prejudice is taught into us right from homes. Thus,even a person who has gone through school seeing good people from other ethnic group will conveniently invoke a negative stereotype in general terms when it serves their purpose at the time. Such weaponised identity, that is, knowing and deliberately demonising another person’s identity in order to stir up ethnic outrage against that person and their views has consumed almost half of the African political stage. Quite often, those with political privilege load it over tribes whom they deem unworthy of economic and political leadership. It’s manifested through use of fake news and most importantly historical allusions. Back to our communities, these tribal sentiments are much fostered by laziness to think openly and dig deeper into issues through voice of reason. Thinking is even more blurred when emotion is involved. It could explain why often kinsmen would jump-join into a tribal quarrel without even knowing what sparked the disagreement. Only to refer later “…by the way,what exactly happened?” These are witnessed scenarios so many a time. This really and clearly explains why police officers even first ascertain ones tribe before making a statement. In other instances, because of lack of inclusive societies, you find some army officers remain in the same rank but constantly see young people promoted and the pattern shows a belonging to a certain tribe. More so,look at its manifestation through blackmail and the use of tribalistic mindsets against the targets. A muganda does not support Bobi Wine; “You see? They are like that,they never support their own any good. They’re traitors.” When he supports Bobi Wine, they are like “you see? They’re tribalistic! They support him because he is is a Muganda.” This is also applied to some other ethnic groups too. Therefore, such a demonized specter,although has been a subject of discussion for many years, should not be taken for granted. It has been here. Its here. We must face it rather than run away from it. We should therefore encourage the voice of reason. We should encourage people to think over issues rather than basing on the existing tribalistic hullabaloo. The world now demands thinking more than ever before. Secondary, we all have a big role to play so as to curb this busines. But the most important thing is to deal with the people in the education sector. The education experts,religious leaders among others should be at the front in sensitisation. This tribalism is too high in educational institutions. Lastly, we need to build more inclusive and meritorious institutions so as to overcome the problem. Because our own political players have injected these sentiments into public systems (institutions) and into their own special people in those systems thus creating distinction between them and others. And we very well know that when people are marginalised, they go tribal.
Elvin John Turibamwe 