'Useless courses' comments taint education role

By Fred Kakooza

There has been quite a great debate in the media about the relevance of Art/Humanities courses if they are as useful compared to the sciences to the extent that the President H.E Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has called for a review of these courses such that universities can remain or provide only relevant courses. We have also witnessed the government student loan scheme only targeting students on science courses at university unfortunately leaving out those offering humanities 

A colleague here at Makerere University while contributing to this debate on the staff list uses the economics law of supply and demand noting that science graduates are on high demand because they are a scarce good on the market while their Arts/Humanities counterparts are in surplus, low priced but cannot be absorbed by the market (cannot find jobs), The reason why most have resorted to uncouth activities of staging jobless demonstration including attempts to register unemployed youth though the article does not state whether those demonstrating are from an Arts/Humanities background.

From this submission, I pose a question: should the teaching of Arts/humanities courses stop because the market is saturated? What will happen when the science market gets saturated as well? It is really unfortunate that Uganda is grappling with (youth) unemployment and trying to work on solutions to address this challenge. However, blaming this on Arts/Humanities courses in my view, we are pointing the gun and firing bullets in the wrong direction and at a wrong target. I believe we are missing the point when we equate the end results of education to only its relevance to employment opportunities.

Education is a holistic approach that plays a central role in the social, political and economic development of the country underscoring the bigger benefits of an educated population. The level of education that one attains plays a critical role in making informed choices and decisions about various issues of (life) human development like health including issues of nutrition, family planning, reproductive health among others can only make sense if one has attained an education.
The impression we are trying to create here is that those that have studied sciences are assured of instant employment after graduation which is not actually the case. Rather than arguing about which courses are relevant or not, I believe we should begin to emphasize confidence building and self-reliance as we train the students on how to make their way out of given situations through problem solving.

At the end of the day, what one does or achieves with their degree qualification is through personal effort rather than collective effort. A degree gives you a foundation, hence a launch pad into the world. I have seen science graduates getting involved in Arts/Humanities and those from Arts/Humanities managing science fields and most of the time working together.

I conclude by emphasizing that let us do our part, through teaching and encouraging our students to be prepared of the peculiar realities of the world, so as to use their degrees for self-actualization through personal effort.