“A student is not above his teacher but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher”
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.”
― Henry Ford
Main Prayer Focus of the Week:
- A policy emphasis on vocational and polytechnic skills
- Increased investment in Science and technology
- Improvement and increase in the education and training of scientists and engineers
- Expanded education in the basic sciences throughout the educational system from primary school through secondary to college and university.
- Increase in research as indicated by the number and quality of scientific publications
- Increase in the number of inventions from Ugandan scientists
- Expanded training in entrepreneurship, management and leadership
OVERVIEW OF THE WEEK’S THEME
More than at any other time in the history of mankind, knowledge and especially scientific knowledge has increased. Africa has largely been left out of the cutting edge of the increase in knowledge. Almost all the world’s modern science and technology is owned and controlled by industrial nations of Europe, North America, Japan and lately emerging nations of Asia. Technology, which is simply applied science is the most importance means of improving economic and social life. Industrialized nations owe much of their economic and social progress to developing science and technology. Africa’s backwardness in science and technology is a major barrier to our development. Like in many other areas we are net consumers of science and technology and not innovators; it is a very costly position to be in.
The church in the West played a major role in the rise of modern science and its application to agriculture, medicine and manufacturing. It has been argued that the Protestant Reformation provided an attitude to nature that made possible if not inevitable the growth of modern science and technology. Christians have been and remain the world’s leading scientists. Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, Michael Faraday and great physicians like Lord Lister were all committed Christians. We in Africa must achieve the ability to apply science and technology to the immense problems of poverty disease hunger and underdevelopment that our generation is faced with and education, specifically relevant education has a major part to play in this.
No country has wholly depended on imported science and technology and yet managed to develop. Even Japan has prospered economically not on imported technology but on its own innovations based on Western science and technology. If science and technology are not developed on the continent, we will continue to be exploited by those with the capacity for science and technology. There must be increased investment in Science and technology; the education and training of scientists and engineers must be improved. Education in the basic sciences must be expanded throughout the educational system from primary school through secondary to college and university.
The Role of Business, Technical and Vocation Education Training (BTVET)
BTVET is concerned with the acquisition of skills and knowledge for employment and sustainable livelihood. Technical education is that aspect of education that leads to the acquisition of skills as well as basic knowledge. Vocational education on the other hand is training for a specific vocation in industry or trade. The mission of technical and vocational education is to promote the production of skilled technical and professional manpower to revitalize and sustain the national economy and reduce unemployment and poverty. Technical and vocational education gives individuals the skills to learn and become productive citizens.
Despite the benefits of BTVET, it is still lowly regarded and many youth shy away from technical and vocational employment preferring degrees. As a result Uganda lacks skilled bricklayers, plumbers, carpenters, painters, lab technicians, electrical technicians, agricultural auxiliary staff etc. The majority of those currently doing these jobs are there by default rather than by choice and are most often not trained to do them. The result is often substandard. It should be noted too that it is this cadre of skilled manpower that form the foundation for industrialization and for an efficient society.
Unfortunately Uganda converted well-established polytechnics like Uganda Polytechnic Kyambogo, Busitema College of Agricultural Mechanization, and Arapai Agricultural College into degree-awarding universities. These institutions were producing much-needed technicians but now produce scientists who tend to be under- or un-employed. For Uganda to become a manufacturing nation, a policy emphasis on vocational and polytechnic skills is needed, as was the case with Germany, Singapore and South Korea, which are now global giants in manufacturing. The experience of these industrial giants is that most of the skills that are needed in industry and manufacturing do not require degree qualifications, rather they come from vocational and polytechnics. In 2014 China, another industrial powerhouse announced that it was turning half of its public universities (six hundred of them) into institutions of applied learning or polytechnics to produce more technically trained graduates.
INSTITUTIONS PRAYER FOCUS FOR WEEK SIX
Pray for these institutions using the prayer guidelines in Chapter 1:
- Uganda Business, Technical Examination Board (UBTEB)
- Uganda Nurses and Midwives Examination Board (UNMEB)
- Uganda Allied Health Examination Board (UAHEB)
- All Public Universities are now independent Votes
- Uganda National Council for Higher Education (NCHE)
- Higher Education Students Financing Board
- Directorate of Industrial Training (DIT)
- Directorate of Higher, Technical, Vocational Education and Training (HTVET)
- Skilling Uganda
MARKET PLACE FOCUS FOR WEEK SIX
- Nehemiah created a support network: Nehemiah 4 vs 19
- Pray for the leaders that God is raising in your sector of the market place and for yourself that you will be able to create a support network of friends and likeminded people
- Pray that the enemy will not isolate you or the leaders. The enemy likes to isolate and then finish off his prey.
1 (ibid, p.228)
2 World Univerity News, 12 June 2014 quoted in (Ssepuuya, 2017, p.228)