The dilemmas and complexities of implementing language-in-education policies: Perspectives from urban and rural contexts in Uganda

Language-in-education policies are a highly debated topic in Africa and at the root of understanding inequalities in Africa's education systems. This article explores the implementation of Uganda's recent local language education policy; how it has been received and practiced in urban and rural contexts, and the major challenges and implications addressed by education stakeholders in each context. The study confirms that the use of local languages as the language of instruction has contributed to the improvement of literacy skills, children's participation in lessons, and their understanding of content. Nevertheless, the local language policy was fiercely disputed by teachers, parents and various authorities at district and national levels, as many appeared to be concerned with the policy constraining children's academic success at upper primary levels and limiting their transition to secondary education. Through the study, the authors highlight critical misconceptions and assumptions in language-in-education within both policy development and in local education practices and perceptions. The article points to a review of language-in-education in its entirety; across mediums of instruction and assessment for lower and upper primary levels; across teaching methodologies for second language acquisition in multilingual environments; and across socio-economic divides in rural and urban regions of the country.     

Actor diversity and interactions in the development of banana hybrid varieties in Uganda: implications for technology uptake

Purpose: We examine the nature of networks through which new hybrid banana varieties (HBVs) in Uganda are developed, and how different actors engage in the technology development process.

Design/methodology/approach: We collected the data through 20 key informant interviews and 5 focus group discussions with actors involved in the process. We analysed the data with NVivo and Social Network Analysis software.

Findings: The process of developing HBVs involves many actors with a diversity of roles and interests. The network density was 29.4, implying existence of only 29.4% of the possible direct linkages. Strong ties mainly existed among research-oriented actors, with other actors in the periphery.

Practical implications: The current position of smallholder farmers and other non-research actors inhibits their influence on decisions in the technology development process. We recommend that smallholder farmers should be empowered through better organization so that they can influence the process of developing HBVs. Researchers, supported with appropriate policies, should engage more with actors in the intermediary, enterprise and support service domains for a more vibrant agricultural research system.

Theoretical implications: Application of the systems approach to technology development requires a dynamic process that supports involvement of a diverse range of actors. However, close attention to context is important in dealing with issues of power asymmetries and determining to what extent various actors engage in the process.

Originality/value: This work contributes to literature on systems approaches to agricultural and rural development. The paper demonstrates that actor diversity and interactions are critical in technology development and uptake.     

A structural analysis of ICT-based intervention on reading habits in Uganda

Information and communication technologies have opened up new opportunities for cultivating a reading culture, where people go beyond instrumental to leisure reading, in developing countries. But the research on information and communication technology (ICT) and reading has been conducted mainly in western countries. This paper explores the potential of ICT-based interventions for fostering a reading habit among university students in Uganda. A cross-sectional survey design was employed and data were collected using a self-designed instrument from eight universities in Uganda. Structural equation analysis using Partial Least Squares was used for statistical analysis of the data. Major findings from 337 valid responses indicate that ICT usage, home culture, school culture, and disposable income significantly impact the reading habits of university students in Uganda.     

Networked texts: discourse,power and gender neutrality in Ugandan physics textbooks

Research within science textbooks has dominantly focused on examining explicit representations of women and men using quantitative methodology. The assumption that gendered arrangements are necessarily explicit and therefore visible and countable, overlooks how power works explicitly and implicitly through discourse to produce specific gendered subjectivities. In taking up feminist post-structuralisms, this study contributes to textbook studies within sciences by illuminating both explicit and implicit representations of gender. Using discourse analysis, ‘gender-neutral’ and/or disembodied subjects and objects were ‘unmasked,’ revealing a generic male and/or masculine subject. Gender-neutrality, which is pervasive within the physics textbooks, was thus exposed as a mask for generic maleness/masculinity. I argue that this objectivist science, which remains compatible with a narrow range of student gendered identities, forecloses possibilities for a wide range of scientist subjectivities, to produce a more inclusive physics curriculum, with a greater possibility of developing physics using diverse subjectivities.     

‘You don’t want to come out from the crowd because you are a girl’: gendered differences in young people’s participation in sexuality education in Uganda

Notions of ‘participation’ in sexuality education has gained considerable traction in recent years – with participation being regarded as a fundamental right and a critical means to empower young people. However, the notion has increasingly been subject of debate, with critics problematising the manner in which participation is operationalised, and questioning the assumed impact of participation in relation to sexuality education goals. This paper contributes to these debates by examining the under-researched gendered dimensions of participation of young people in sexuality education. It utilises data from a qualitative study conducted in 2015 on young women and men’s (10–15 years old) perceptions of their participation in the dance4life programme, an in-school sexuality education programme in Jinja district in eastern Uganda. The paper highlights subtle but important differences between young men and women’s participation in the programme, which are arguably reflective of existing gendered hierarchies. We conclude by providing recommendations on how to address gender differences in participation.     

Benefit Incidence Analysis of Government Spending on Public-Private Partnership Schooling under Universal Secondary Education Policy in Uganda

ABSTRACT

The study establishes whether government spending on private universal secondary education (USE) schools is equitable across quintiles disaggregated by gender and by region in Uganda. The study employs benefit incidence analysis tool on the Uganda National Panel Survey (UNPS 2009/10) data to establish the welfare impact of public subsidy on different households. The results reveal that the richer households benefit more from the subsidy than the poor. Similar patterns are evident across gender and regions. However, the subsidy as a share of total household spending is higher (49%) for poor households than the richer (6%). The contrast in the findings could be because the richer seem to have more school going children and thus spend more on each student. The concentration curves reveal that there are minimal achievements by the state funding to redistribute incomes to the poor.     

Curriculum change in Uganda: Teacher perspectives on the new thematic curriculum

Based on a fieldwork study, this article seeks to investigate the implementation of ‘thematic curriculum’ in Uganda from the perspectives of teachers. The article shows that although the majority of teachers are enthusiastic about the new curriculum, their implementation efforts are constrained by a multitude of challenges. The findings raise questions with regard to the appropriateness of the new curriculum initiative to the structural realities of Ugandan classrooms, and calls for increased attention to the implementation process.