The Freedom Square at Makerere University is popular for students' meetings |
Last week I visited my alma matter, Makerere University, as part of my photo research tour of Uganda.
It happened to be the week when freshers (or what
in the United States are termed “freshmen”) arrive at the university to
start their undergraduate studies.
Many were loitering around the campus, looking
for their halls of residence, lecture rooms and carrying the A4 manila
envelopes associated with naïve freshers.
It brought back memories of my time at the
university, most of which are ambiguous and some of which are still
bitter 27 years later.
I had joined Makerere in September 1987 from
Namasagali College in Kamuli District, a school run by a Catholic priest
called Fr Damien Grmes and run more or less like a police state.
The public perception of Namasagali is that this
was a school all about dancing, swimming and partying. It was, in
reality, a tightly-controlled environment much like North Korea.
We were all required to be at the main hall for
certain events like the weekends of dances, video shows, the annual
disco-dancing competition, the annual Mr and Miss Namasagali beauty
contest and the annual premiere of the school’s famous dance-drama
productions.
This iron-fisted discipline and enforced participation in school events in some sense bound us together as a community.
We all witnessed or took part in the same events, unless sick or with official exemption to remain behind in the dormitory.
Every Sunday morning, Fr Grimes gave us a pep talk
on life called conference, in the main hall. Some, if not most, of that
European philosophy went over our heads.
Namasagali, perhaps, was a police state more in
the vein of Singapore than North Korea, when I think about it now: state
control, enforced cleanliness, enforced efficiency and enforced
entertainment.
Changes from high school
It was a shock to me, then, to come from our Singapore and into the place called Makerere University. The first shock was the total freedom at university.
It was a shock to me, then, to come from our Singapore and into the place called Makerere University. The first shock was the total freedom at university.
No roll call before lectures, no lights out, no
questions of moral behaviour, boys and girls visiting each other’s halls
of residence at almost any time of day and any day of the week.
The theory was that we were now adults and were responsible for the way we lived our lives. I begged to disagree then and still beg to disagree to this day with the notion of total freedom of that kind.
The theory was that we were now adults and were responsible for the way we lived our lives. I begged to disagree then and still beg to disagree to this day with the notion of total freedom of that kind.
It ruined many a student, especially girls who
came from all-girl schools like Namagunga, Nabisunsa and Gayaza, most
never having tasted such “freedom” and in short order, falling prey to
the cunnings of their fellow male students.
Many “Bad Boys” and “Players” at university and
coming from town in the evenings to “bench” at female halls of residence
discovered that these bright girls might have scored top grades at
A-Level and were enrolled for courses like Medicine, Law, Engineering,
Veterinary Medicine and Commerce, but as the American band DeBarge sang
in 1985, “The heart’s not so smart.”
As most men know, it doesn’t seem to take much to deceive a
girl, even one studying an advanced university degree, and many lives
were ruined as a result.
First lectures
Then we attended our first classes. Lecturers appeared before the class and started delivering their first notes of the first papers.
Then we attended our first classes. Lecturers appeared before the class and started delivering their first notes of the first papers.
One morning, a professor called Mahood Mamdani
appeared before us to teach us Political Science 1.1. He just started
lecturing us without sufficient background explanation into why this
subject was important and what role understanding it would play in our
future public lives.
A few days later, a Professor Byarugaba also
appeared to take us through another aspect of Political Science, a Mr
Rwabukwali in Sociology, a Mr Kirumira in Methods of Social Research and
so on.
Nobody took us through what these courses meant and where, after we graduated, we would fit into Ugandan society.
That is the part I think Makerere University
failed us. This historic African university failed to give us a
philosophical induction into the philosophy of education, society and
the modern nation-state.
Without this anchor, most of us were left with the
impression that we were being educated simply to pass and having passed
and obtained our degrees, hassle for jobs, buy furniture, cars and
“start building” as the end purpose.
There is so much Makerere could have made us see.
Some might argue that it was for us to discover new knowledge for
ourselves and not for the university to spoon-feed us. They might be
right, but it would have helped if our lecturers and wardens gave us
just a little guidance.
Some like me and others joined university when we
were still teenagers, so we were not exactly trained to search out
matters for ourselves.
Makerere University should invite some of us to
give lectures to freshers to help them develop a broad understanding of
what their degrees will mean for the country and the world, beyond
earning one a job.
I feel strongly that this overview, this sense of
our purpose, is so crucial and many would have made so much better use
of their university years had this been made clear in their minds.
Some of the greatest changes in world history over
the last 40 to 50 years have been from American universities,
everything from Apple to Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Yahoo! and others
(albeit that some of these students elected to drop out of college once
the global, historic implication of their computer and digital
inventions became clear to them.)
There is no reason for us to regard university in
Uganda and in Africa as places of boring theory to be endured for the
sake of earning the degree that will earn us bread and money.
Universities since their modern character started
taking shape in medieval Europe, have always been incubators for
world-changing ideas, research and products. Makerere University should
return its students to that first sense of purpose at the time it was
created in 1926.
So much has changed since the 1980s in Uganda. We
used to laugh off those at Makerere who studied music, Dance and Drama
as a lightweight course. But today, music, dance and drama is one of the
most prominent and highest-paying careers in Uganda.
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