Tag: Education

Education is a Corner Stone of China’s Investment to Uganda

Posted on By Joshua Kingdom

“In order to further strengthen the mutual understanding and friendship between the peoples of China and Uganda, and to further enrich the contents of the Comprehensive Strategic Cooperative Partnership between China and Uganda, the Chinese Embassy in Uganda welcomes citizens of Uganda to apply for the 2025/26 Chinese Government Scholarship.” This statement appeared in a call issued on the Chinese Embassy website in October 2024 and last Friday, the institution fulfilled her word as Ambassador Zhang Lizhong flagged off the successful thirty nine students that will now go on to study at different Universities in China.

These scholarships are an annual programme courtesy of the China Scholarship Council targeted at students who hail from countries other than China (of which Uganda is among) wishing to study at any of the two hundred seventy partner universities. Attaining this opportunity is very prestigious as it comes with a coverage of all tuition, a monthly stipend, plus plane tickets to China as well as for the return journey upon completion of one’s degree. This window is open for those interested in Bachelors, Masters, and Doctorate of Philosophy studies.

The arrangement is part of a long standing tradition of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) investing in education in Uganda that goes as far back as the 80s. A related contemporary example is the Chinese Embassy Scholarship Project at Makerere University (Mak) that has been awarding checks of UGX. 2,800,000 a semester to learners from across several departments since the 2018/2019 academic year.

Moreover, the Chinese business community in the country has heavily invested in education of Ugandans too. As recent as May this year, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation awarded scholarships to three hundred students in the districts of Hoima and Kikuube at the levels of Primary school, Secondary school, and University in continuation of a corporate social responsibility campaign that it has carried out for more than a decade. The totality of these and more initiatives point to a commitment by PRC to contributing towards real progress in the country for as it is understood in Economics, education is one of the key indicators of economic development.

This owes to the fact that a skilled labour force harnesses the other factors of production in more and more innovative ways. Additionally, an educated populace reinforces conditions that indirectly bring about growth. By earning more for example, a large consumption base emerges which in turn attracts investment thereby creating more jobs. A well-studied country equally guarantees proper service delivery and the advantages that accrue thereto. Take proper healthcare; it helps ensure that people are in good physical and mental conditions hence they become more productive.

What is more, is that China is educating Ugandans in a quality way an attribute necessary for the realization of the outcomes we just listed. As a 2025 World Bank study has indicated, there is a lot of disillusionment especially in developing nations over the fact that the increase in education levels has not translated into improved standards of living as initially envisaged precisely because skills transfer remains a big impediment in the curricula modalities of these countries.

In contrast, obtaining one’s degree in Beijing or any of the locales in China comes with the said ingredient. As a matter of fact, thirty of the Universities that the students going to China study at are ranked among the world’s top five hundred including Tsinghua and Peking that come twelfth and thirteenth per the Times Higher Education rankings. For context, only one Ugandan University (Mak) appears in the world’s first six hundred. But it is not just that the individuals that go to these institutions attain better education, some of them get to pursue cutting-edge courses that are not offered anywhere in Uganda. Two of these are Artificial Intelligence related degrees as well as those concerning the construction of hi-tech bridges.

It is not surprising then that many alumni of these ventures have gone on to contribute significantly to different sectors of our economy upon their return. Indeed, Ambassador Lizhong affirmed that previous beneficiaries of the embassy’s scheme have gone on to become leaders in business, government, and academia among other spheres of influence in his remarks to this year’s batch of scholarship awardees.

The writer is a research fellow at the Development Watch Centre.

Rethinking Africa’s Education Systems: Lessons from China

Posted on By Sino Uganda Research Centre

By Nnanda Kizito Sseruwagi

Let me first caveat the fact this is a sweeping generalization as far as reference to “Africa’s education systems” is concerned. But I believe the generalization will still meet some nuance in this article.

Most African countries (especially Sub-Saharan) maintain a varied mixture of traditional and colonial/European/Western schooling systems. By their very nature, our education systems generally lack domestic responsiveness to address our societies’ unique historical, contemporary, social and future realities. This is due to their unmindful inheritance of formal education structures which were relinquished to us at the dawn of independence, without reassessing the intentions that informed the colonial design of education in Africa. Besides this, other factors such as epidemics, humanitarian crises and other development challenges continue to bear negatively on our children’s schooling.

Often, when action is championed to do something to address our education challenges, it is still spearheaded by external actors like the United Nations which sets a cookbook of Millenium Development Goals which every country should pursue. Of course, this is not to say no fruits have been born from this. Millions of children have been enrolled in school continent-wide through adoption of UN Programmes and support from UN agencies like the World Food Programme which provides meals in schools to combat hunger-related dropouts.

However, I think so much more would have been done if our governments keenly rethought, redesigned and reimplemented their education systems.

I’ll draw inspiration from one of the most recently poor, underdeveloped, famine-stricken, disease-affected, resource-constrained countries which paid clinical attention to their education and now boasts global excellence in almost all indices measuring academic excellence – China.

Estimates from 2022 showed that Uganda’s adult literacy rate (the percentage of people aged 15 and above who have basic reading, writing, arithmetic and understanding) was 80.59%. in contrast, China’s literacy rate upon the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 was estimated between 20 and 40%. As of 2021. The country’s literacy rate was estimated at 99.83%  It took a great investment of thought and resources to change the course of literacy in their country.

Currently, China is among the biggest investors in academic research. Every year, millions of students graduate in science and engineering from Chinese universities, including thousands of international students. They surpassed the United States in 2017 with the highest number of scientific publications. It also ranks topmost in most international STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) championships.

This is not by luck or coincidence. When China emerged out of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), it redesigned its education system to focus on economic modernization. Few if any African countries seem to understand or act with the understanding that there is intersectionality between education and economic transformation. China understood this early and highly prioritized the development of scientific and technical knowledge as well as training skilled personnel to realize it economic modernization agenda.

Needful to add, the pursuit of scientific studies excellence did not undermine humanities. Literature and the arts were also highly revived, which explains the world-wide appeal of Chinese cultural expression through movies.

The country has also keenly responded to climate change, with its Education Ministry formally implementing environmental education content in the school curriculum from early primary through to high school since 2003.

In order to satisfy their country’s industrialization and urbanization, the country also instituted higher vocational schools, secondary skill schools and job-finding centers. These institutions tailor the skills they equip workers with to address the urgent needs of China’s modern manufacturing and service industries.

Capital shortages to highly finance education is expected. However, like in China, alternative forms of education especially at higher levels can be embraced. Some institutions in Africa already implement online and long-distance learning, but we need to inform more people about this possibility. Spare-time and part-time learning can also go a long way in onboarding low-skilled youth who did not get a chance to study due to high resource constraints in formal arrangements.

China has also embraced the opportunity of using education to cause social change, specifically by making it compulsory for all universities to teach literature that encourages the integration of the country’s ethnic minorities and end discrimination.

It is difficult, almost impossible to develop a country without getting it right with education. But we can’t get it right if we do not think through it. If we keep rolling the machine, churning out graduates and drop-outs who have undergone a rusted, inherited, unexamined system. We need to press the reset button, get on the drawing board and think Africa’s education systems anew.

The author is a senior research fellow at the Development Watch Centre.

Africa-China Cooperation: Dar-Es-salaam Consensus is Right Step to Building a Community of Shared Future

Posted on By Sino Uganda Research Centre

By George Musiime

While describing China-Africa cooperation, Chinese officials have always argued that there are two fundamental thrust forces  to the thriving cooperation between China and Africa. The two are;  one, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and two, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). The FOCAC, is also the flagship vehicle for people to people exchanges between Africa and China. China’s emphasis on people to people connections is premised in an understanding that, Amity between people is the bedrock of state-to-state cooperation which one can argue is the foundation of win-win cooperation China emphasises.

It is therefore no wonder that China has been standing at the forefront of putting people to people connection first in all its diplomatic undertakings. In line with this commitment to promote people to people connections, China and Africa have held sub forums of the FOCAC including the China-Africa peace and security forum, people forum, poverty reduction and development forum, young leaders’ forum, Think Tanks Forum, the ministerial forum on China-Africa health Cooperation, forum on China-Africa local government Cooperation and the FOCAC legal forum.

In effort to advance this agenda, in collaboration with Chinese Embassy in Tanzania, Zhejiang Provincial People’s Government, Jinhua Municipal People’s Government, Zhejiang Normal University and University of Dar es Salaam organised the thirteenth edition of the China-Africa Think Tanks Forum (CATTF) which was held in Dar-Es-salaam under the theme; “China-Africa Practice: Building a Community with a Shared Future.”  The During  his key note address at the opening of the forum, Mr. James Mdoe the Permanent Secretary in Tanzania’s ministry of education pointed out that the goal of the forum was to  focus on exploring China-Africa cooperation mechanisms, strategic initiatives, and practical actions in the fields of industrialisation, agricultural modernisation, and human resources training. Moreover,  the Deputy Vice chancellor University of Dar-Es-salaam made a call for increased  Cooperation especially in the area of research across a diversity of fields adding that this would set Africa on a fast track to modernisation.

The CATTF brought together more than 300 members from the Academia, Think Tanks, as well as government officials from both China and at least 49 African countries with the objective of discussing China-Africa relations in the broader global context. The thirteenth edition of the forum came up in a unified China-African voice on numerous geopolitical matters afflicting the world but most prominently Africa today in what has been termed as the “Africa-China Dar-Es-salaam Consensus.” This document was the brainchild of African and Chinese experts in which they shared insights on how to address not just the many  geopolitical challenges facing the world today but also injustices that have been suffered by Africa in the corridors of international relations.

Among other things, the forum called on the world to deepen development cooperation explaining that,  such cooperation to be beneficial to all especially the developing world, it must be built on mutual understanding, solidarity, with the goal of shared prosperity in mind.  Additionally, the consensus further made a call to all countries to endeavour to build and uphold a people centered approach to development. Ideally, “a people centered approach to development” is one that priorities the needs, aspirations and wellbeing of people and communities throughout the entire process of development. Such an approach must believe in ensuring that development initiatives are responsive to the concerns, values and priorities of the people and beneficiary communities. The spirit of the consensus is that only through fostering participatory development processes are we able to achieve meaningful and equitable development outcomes.  This is exactly what Africa and the rest of the global south needs; the creation of a sound institutional environment that will enable all citizens of the world to work towards a better life unimpeded.

In light of responding to the tumultuous global security landscape, the consensus urged the world to promote dialogue over conflicts. China for example has been a strong voice for negotiated solution to two of today’s major conflicts because of the understanding that the price of conflict is way to high for us to pay. In fact, the more we fan conflicts, whether it is by providing armaments for the warring parties or frustrating attempts at dialogue we are practically turning people on both sides of the conflict into Canon fodder and this can never be the blueprint for building a prosperous world.  Such is the background of the Dar-Es-salaam Consensus’s  call for dialogue over conflict. Moreover, building on the understanding that globalisation must coexist in the same space with diversity,  the consensus also called for the respect of everyone’s culture, history, and traditions.  Even in a global village, people must be allowed to live and practice their culture. It is attempts to overrun or water down the culture, history and identity of people that has in some instances resulted into resistance and eventually some of the world’s bloodiest  conflicts. In fact this call is more in alignment with multilateralism over hegemony as a path to  global peace and harmony.

Furthermore, the imposition of a prearranged pathway to modernisation was referenced as a major challenge that the south has struggled with for decades because what has worked for one country may not necessarily work for the next. Thus in response to this divergence between development aspirations and strategies, the Dar-Es-salaam Consensus called for giving countries a chance to pursue their own path to modernisation. These are paths that take into account their culture, history,  traditions, and are tailored to their unique development needs. Accordingly, the Dar-Es-salaam consensus called for strengthening global economic governance and pushed for reforms in the global financial systems in order to create an environment where all nations of the world big or small, developed or developing will be able to thrive and to reach the universal goal of shared prosperity.

The output of the 13th CATTF therefore is a document that seeks redress or at least limit the chance that Africa will suffer the same injustices that the continent has suffered over and over again in the space of International Relations. The Dar-Es-salaam  Consensus is the tool that has been used to communicate this position and  call the rest of the world to cease trying to take advantage of Africa in order to build sustainable development bonds with Africa and the global south.

George Musiime is a Research Fellow at The Development Watch Centre.

China-Uganda 60 Years Of Diplomatic Relations

Posted on By Sino Uganda Research Centre

China and Uganda have a long diplomatic history dating back to the post-independence era. China is among the few countries that recognized Uganda as sovereign country just days after independence. Since then, Beijing has been cooperating well with Uganda, offering Kampala support in different sectors that we cannot discuss the journey of Uganda’s socio-economic development without mentioning the role of China.

In education sector, China continues to do a tremendous work offering training opportunities to different Ugandans at different levels. By end of 2021, Beijing had offered Ugandans hundreds of undergraduate and postgraduate scholarships and over 5000 Ugandans benefited from China’s short course training opportunities covering different key areas such as agriculture, medical care, infrastructure, information and technology among others.  China is also collaborating with African universities funding research and other learning opportunities. Makerere University’s Confucius institute is among the many examples. Aware that human capital and well-educated and skilled people are essential to facilitate development of the country, one cannot discuss development of Uganda’s education sector and human capital development without mentioning China’s contribution.

In the field of agriculture, China has been playing a key role for more than 40 years. In 1973 and 1987, China invested and established the Kibimba Rice Scheme (Now Tilda Uganda) and Doho Rice Schemes which have increased rice production and provided employment opportunities to many Ugandans. Additionally, the South to South Co-operation has boosted agriculture in Mbarara, Kabale, Amuria, Wakiso, and Budaka. Agricultural technology demonstration hubs have been established in Kabale to boost horticulture. China has also been supporting fish farming by funding the construction of the Wakawaka fish landing site and the Kajjansi Aquaculture Training and Development Centre which is a national center for aquaculture research in Uganda. This has led to increased and sustained fish production.

In 2009 under the South-South Cooperation (SSC), in coordination with United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), China launched FAO-China South-South Cooperation (FAO-China SSC) and established FAO-China Trust Fund. China invested $30 million in this program to to support agriculture in Uganda. China has since been supporting this program injecting $100 million in 2015 and 2021 for phase II and phase III respectively.

During phase II of China-FAO SSC, China sent 47 agricultural experts and technicians have to train Ugandans in the same field. During the expert’s two year stay in Uganda, they trained many Ugandans and helped to improve technologies used to in farming of various crops such as rice, foxtail millet, maize, grapes, apples and cherry tomatoes, as well as animal reproduction.

In energy sector, China’s contribution in Uganda’s energy is also visible. The Karuma dam hydropower station with capacity of 600 MW which under construction in Kiryandongo District is an example of China’s contribution in Uganda’s energy sector. The project is 85% funded by China’s Exim Bank and Uganda government is meeting the remaining 15 percent. The project is being constructed by a Chinese firm Sinohydro Corporation and is expected to be completed in June 2023. Isimba power station which became operational in 2019 was also funded by with a loan from China’s Exim Bank. Karuma and Isimba hydropower plants are identified in Uganda’s Vision 2040 as key projects to Uganda’s economic development.

In infrastructure development, China directly funded US $ 350 million for the construction of the Kampala-Entebbe express highway, which is the first express highway in Uganda. The expressway is a 51km, four-lane, dual carriage toll road linking Kampala to Entebbe airport. The stated intention of the highway was to; reduce congestion and increase the commercial viability of the Greater Kampala Metropolitan area, improve mobility and reduce travel times and vehicle operating costs, and provide better access to local facilities for communities and jobs.

The expressway has helped to improve mobility and travel times to the airport. The US $ 350 million loan will be paid in 13 years and current statistics from Uganda National Roads Authority indicate Ugandans have embraced using the road with average daily passages of 20,000 which is far higher than projected daily passage which UNRA had put at 13,000 passages.  This also means daily collections have risen which is a good sign that the road can sustain itself in terms of maintenance and paying back construction loan. Indeed, Joy Nabasa the spokesperson of Egis which was hired to maintain the road collecting the toll on behalf of UNRA recently told journalists that the number of passages is increasing daily. Last month, media reports indicated that the road toll had collected 13 billion shillings in 4 months alone.

Good road network is key in transportation of goods and services which is key for development. As two Chinese say; “Better roads lead to better life.” and “Build roads if you want to get rich” with more good road network, Uganda’s social-economic growth and match to middle-income status is a matter of time.

In health sector, China continues to play a key role in supporting Uganda’s health sector. For example, as a result of good relations between the two countries, China funded the construction of China-Uganda Friendship hospital at Naguru. The hospital offers health services to people, for instance, paediatrics, gynaecology, dental, and laboratory services.

On 10th June this year, a team of Chinese medical personnel arrived in the country and will stay in Uganda providing medical services to citizens. Since 1983, China has been sending a team of doctors and experts to help work with Ugandans in extending medical serves to Ugandans.,

In the wake of COVID-19, China has supported Uganda in the fight against the pandemic. China donated COVID-19 test kits to boost efforts against the virus. Additionally, Beijing donated up to one million doses of COVID-19 vaccines.

Considering the positive contribution, the two countries have witnessed over the last 60 years, it is a living a testimony that China and Uganda are good comrades, good equal partners and good brothers always working hand shoulder to shoulder with major aim of building a community of shared future and prosperity for mankind. Considering enormous opportunities that comes with this brotherly relation should be natured by people of both countries. This to happen, as a Chinese saying goes, “amity between the people holds the key to state-to-state relations,” with the bilateral relations between our countries were elevated to the level of Comprehensive Cooperative Partnership three years ago in late June 2019, our two peoples must guard these relations jealously.

Vianney Sebayiga is a research fellow at Development Watch Centre and a Student at the Kenya School of Law.