Bwesigye bwa Mwesigire writing in This is Africa:
“Kamrasi’s First Lesson in the Bible” - John Speke. From “To the Mountains of the Moon: Mapping African Exploration, 1541-1880” [pp. 546-47]. African pupils and students learnt that explorers Mungo Park (Scottish) and John Speke (English) discovered River Niger and the source of River Nile respectively.
The almost complete decolonisation of Uganda’s primary education
European superiority through production of knowledge to impart to colonial subjects was an important element of colonial education. In Uganda, it seems primary education is now almost fully decolonised
My mother started her elementary education in the early to mid 1960s, a few years after Uganda attained independence. She has been a headmistress of various rural primary schools for a number of years now, so I ask her about the content of the education she received in the 60s and what pupils today receive. She tells me that they had textbooks that taught them about basic life in England, Canada and India among other places where the British had spread their tentacles. Little was said about us, she says...[continue reading]