Corruption is a by-product of flawed education system

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OPINION

By Opolot SP Okwalinga

In a society where corruption is tolerated and condoned as a cultural norm, the conscientiously upright persons will suffer.

The ideology of the corrupt remains dominant both in governance and in business enterprise. To overtly fight corruption is to risk becoming the object of scorn, isolation, let alone death.

Where, therefore, is corruption bred from? The inherited network of colonial education system is a fallacy.

It is incapable of training and churning out skilfully moral economic transformers and ethically anti-corruption crusaders.

It breeds total dependants. It makes it hard to expand the tax base, and hence suffocating the desired economic transformation in society.

Not only does Uganda continue to dolour from such a fallacious system, but has no idea of the extent of its endurance, and the wider ramifications across the entire economy for generations.

What kind of training is this, that after 13 years (seven in primary and six in secondary), a person remains unemployable, never mind corruptively unproductive and only short of being pestiferous? Afrika is immense with a myriad of socio-economic problems and underdevelopment challenges.

These will all require highly skilled and technologically sophisticated personnel bestowed with virtuous aptitude to solve.

Amidst all these, lie substantial amounts of economic resources for extensive prosperity for all. Corruption is an enemy. Corruption is a rebel. Corruption exacerbates all the other social problems and challenges faced by society.

Education and training permeated by schools, religious and family entities, would be our fortress of solitude. Unfortunately, the adversary’s tactics and strategy do modify with swift escalations at times as often as one patronises the fortress of solitude.

Why lose close to a generation age, in attempt at training a human being? Even an animal like a dog or cat can easily learn a skill in a period under a year of training. We ought to search for what went wrong in our education system.

Who do we blame for these wasted years and decades? If 18 years is our age to mark adulthood, why, therefore, is our education system not graduating citizens at the age of 18?

Education is the foundation upon which the economy is built. Consequently, if this foundation is shaky as a result of wattle material applied in the initial stages, surely the vision for socio-economic transformation of our country will just be an illusion of a dream.

Imagine if the 10.76 million children enrolled in school in Uganda would all graduate with a set of productive skills. High skills would attract and produce quality products in terms of marketable goods and services.

Resultantly, this brings about high income and tax returns. This is so because the number of valuable taxpayers would jump from 3.5 million to over 14 million. Unfortunately, most of the current taxpayers in the private sector are those that spent less time of training in the fallacious education system.

In numerous occasions, this category is endowed with natural talent for business other than formal education training for business.

No wonder traders’ strikes become a common phenomenon resisting formal elitist taxation mechanisms.

So, in a nutshell, the entire network of education that includes schools, religious and family entities, if not revolutionised and overhauled, will remain serving as propellants of corruption in an inherently a fallacious system of dependants.

The writer is a Member of Parliament for Kanyum County, and Chief of Guardian Ideology