Filbert B. Baguma: Man in the arena

Until Uganda’s head of State met with a cross section of 250 members of the Uganda National Teachers Association Union (Unatu) at Kololo, the hirtheto little known Filbert Baguma had become a household name and a permanent fixture in our mainstream news sources.

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Mr Baguma is the general secretary of the largest teachers’ Union in Uganda. The seemingly stoic and unassuming gentleman has consistently spearheaded advocacy for fair and adequate pay for all teachers to the extent of superintending the longest sustained strike for teachers.

This came at the backdrop of the Executive led by the President sternly calling for enhancement of only Science teachers’ salaries and benefits. In his assessment, the President firmly believes that scientists and by extension, Science teachers, are key to the development of the country and, therefore, must be prioritised.

However, this assertion has been met with disapproval, with most highlighting the lack of empirical data to prove that sciences have a larger contribution to economic growth and development compared to humanities. Ironically, the Daily Monitor in its survey found out that a plethora of Uganda’s ruling class are Arts graduates inclusive of the President.

In a hurriedly put together press conference late last month, the government’s Information minister, Dr Chris Baryomunsi, in the usual knee jack reaction manner that seems to have become the government’s accepted modus operandi, stated that Cabinet had given the Ministry of Education a go ahead to table the National Teachers’ Bill.

According to him, the teaching profession will have to be regulated in order to do away with “negative” practices.

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It wasn’t necessary to debate the pronouncement as it was clearly a veiled attempt to intimidate the leadership of Unatu and teachers with the view to them dropping the strike.

The unassuming Mr Baguma continued rallying teachers to lay down their tools until their demands were met. As absurdly as has always been the practice, the Permanent Secretary of Public Service authored a publicly stern letter to the effect that teachers would be laid off and taken to have absconded from work in the event that they did not show up to work within a set period of time.

Uganda’s education sector has been unrivalled in the region and dare I add at continental level. Some if not all of us are products of teachers. It gets clear by the day, that Uganda’s once revered sector has had a sharp decline over the years.

The structural adjustment programmes such as Universal Secondary Education (USE) and Universal Primary Education (UPE) remain hugely underfunded. This was evident in a recent appearance of Masaka Woman MP Joan Namutaawe on the floor of Parliament when she failed to elaborately articulate herself even as she seemed to read from a “well” rehearsed script.  

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To-date, Uganda boasts of the highest number of students still studying under tree shades. The government must prioritise a holistic approach towards current challenges in the education sector; rehabilitate classrooms, ensure that at least there is a well catered for education facility, among others. There is need to provide pluralistic approach to teacher’s direct needs inclusive of fair across the board enhancement of pay. In fact, the longstanding need for a national salary commission would come along away.

As Theodore Roosevelt famously stated in one of  his speeches “Man in the Arena”,  credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. Today that man is Filbert Baguma.

Mr Edward Serucaca Jnr is a lawyer and advocacy strategist for non profits and a son of a retired teacher.