Sir Winston Churchill visited Uganda in 1907 and saw the wonders of this country first hand, the unique climate and the bounty it offers, diverse tourist attractions including the mostly happy people with various cultures and yes, the wealth that comes with its natural endowment.
It is estimated that 85 per cent of Ugandans directly depend on subsistence farming for livelihoods and continue to contribute a significant amount of revenue to the economy with 80 per cent of export earnings and a GDP contribution of 42 per cent by 2015.
Despite the continued use of rudimentary tools and technologies like the hand hoe, the country has continued to rise in coffee exports, currently coming second in Africa after Ethiopia as the largest producer.
Similar gains have been made with matooke, vegetables and flowers with 20 per cent of the agriculture work force employed in commercial farming.
Food crop production, however, seems to be lagging behind and many Ugandans continue to go to bed hungry despite the endowment of 80 per cent arable land.
A FAO report as reported in the Daily Monitor of March 31 indicated that four million Ugandans were suffering from hunger.
This number may most likely increase with Teso, Karamoja, Lango, Acholi, West Nile and parts of Busoga currently facing heavy crop losses as a result of a sudden dry spell and erratic rain patterns that have continuously defied all predictions by the Uganda meteorological department.
I won’t dwell much on the factors leading to this hunger but on its effects to the education sector and our economy.
A visit to Moruarengan Primary School in Abarillela, Amuria District will certainly make patriotic citizens of this country shed tears on the site of pupils with dry mouths, clearly not attentive to the concepts that the teacher is trying to pass across. This part of the country last received rains in early April 2016 and crops have dried up in the gardens.
Many pupils have adopted a copping mechanism for this situation, staying out of school to opt for food gathering around the villages. An ongoing research by the World Food Programme on the cost of hungry children reveals that Uganda loses about 5.6 per cent of its GDP on managing the health of malnourished children and effects of stunting as well as opportunity costs resulting from failure to meet their potential.
Over £160 million is lost to managing sickly children affected by malnutrition or stunting but this group has been found to underperform in the later years due to the poor growth and development at early years.
Nelson Mandela believed and once said that education is the most powerful weapon which one can use to change the world. This will be achieved in Uganda if joint efforts and more urgency is put to improve on the education quality standards like the teacher to pupil ratio, literacy and numeracy skills, pupil to classroom ratio among others.
Some of our very own leaders have truly understood the meaning of Mandela’s words and put more efforts to promoting education.
The efforts of Gen Jeje odongo in Orungo County to increase performance standards should be emulated by others across the country. His solar lighting programme for all the schools of Orungo and printing of exams for pupils for the last two years has excited learners and generated renewed hope for the people of Teso who were once known as the academic giants of this country but have since fallen to the dogs.
Although Mr Musa Ecweru has been in the Disaster ministry for the last 10 years, he led community programmess to build five schools in his own constituency. However, all these efforts will be lost if the pupils continue to go to school on hungry stomachs.
Mr Ariong is an agriculture innovations specialist, One Acre Fund Uganda
No comments:
Post a Comment