Common Sense: Graduation dilemma

If ever there was a sad story in Uganda that keeps on recurring year in, year out then it has to be the “today is graduation day”. To gauge the amount of sadness to that story; out of the more the hundreds to graduate this year from the many universities and colleges in this country, we are told only a small fraction might get employment in the formal sector.

Without sounding like a party pooper, it totally defeats me why all the smiles and the throwing of the hoods in the air followed by wild cheers like they’d won themselves some huge chunk of money, on these graduates’ faces. Don’t they envision the scale of their hopelessness that’s staring at them after all that pomp and excitement is done?

Don’t they know that hundreds of them would have wasted a huge chunk of their lives pursuing dreams that sadly will never materialise? And even if they do materialise, chances are that, many of them will call rioting for a better package, a part of their “lifestyle!”

And to add insult to such a disfiguring injury, friends of theirs that chose a different path than that of flipping in the air, hoods as a sign of celebration after three years of toiling away to become a school teacher, will actually be their main source of funds for their kwanjula, marriage preparations, buying land to build a miserable house and practically everything that needs money…including borrowing some to buy for the two-year-old baby SMA milk.

Yes, it’s cruel but if you want honesty the kind that’s not diluted, about our friends that are graduating this whole week, then the above is the true picture. And the above story is not new. It has been harped on by every Tom, Dick and Harry and every parent at the back of their heads knows about it.

So this is what I don’t understand; if you know that your child will struggle to find employment and chances of them jettisoning off to Afghanistan to pursue a career in security as a guard of some sort are high, then why don’t you offer them another alternative at success?

Parents’ degree not yours

You see, our education here is…for lack of a better word…parent-driven. The parent dictates what school you go to. They dictate what course you study. They dictate which university you will go to and for some parents if they had their way, they would also dictate what kind of girlfriend you would have once on university!

It’s that “hands on” approach to the education of our children by their parents that I have a problem with. Here is a child that wants to try their hand at car mechanics and instead of the parent encouraging them to have a go and possibly support the desire, they blow that flame out calling car mechanics, “failures in society!”
Did you know that in today’s Uganda, a car mechanic with their own garage makes more money than five doctor’s salaries put together in a month! A doctor right from university, after all those years of toiling in medical school earns Shs560,000 as take home pay! That amount is equivalent to a full service of just one Toyota Corona!

A parent will say, “Oh Kalumba, so if my child wants to try out painting or bungee jumping as a career, do you expect me to support such madness?” Of course not. But at the same time, don’t kill that passion and replace it with being a primary school teacher of History. Try and balance the child’s passion with what you think is best for them.

Try and allow another option for your child in case plan A doesn’t work. Don’t pigeon hole him academically. If he’s into bungee jumping, try and see how that can earn him a decent living. Try and encourage him to liaise with the many tourism companies telling them that of the over 200,000 tourists that visit us, a huge number would be interested in bungee jumping and through his company, those tourists can realise that passion in Uganda. Let the parent help him expand the passion to make financial sense.

Uganda’s future is not in the hundreds of graduates that we churn out each year. That’s just a myth. Uganda’s future lies in innovation, business, ingenuity, research, risk-taking, and all those things that you can never find in today’s classrooms or with today’s graduate.

Sadly, today’s parent seems oblivious to that fact. To them, the world has ended the moment their daughter tosses that graduand’s hood in the air! To them, that is the definition of education and start of a “prosperous life”. What a fallacy!

rkalumba@ug.nationmedia.com