Uganda embraces science for development

By Godfrey Olukya

KAMPALA, Uganda (AA) - Ugandan science teacher Stanley Mugerwa is happy with his job at a public secondary school in the East African country that he says greatly values science education.

Unlike the teachers of other subjects, he is relatively well-off by Ugandan standards, owning his own car and running a shop selling stationary.

"I'm financially stable because, as a science teacher, I earn a fairly good salary. Our government has a good policy of paying science teachers well," he told Anadolu Agency on the occasion of World Science Day for Peace and Development.

While teachers of arts subjects earn 800,000 shillings ($228) per month, Mugerwa and other science teachers like him earn 1.2 million shillings ($342).

Further, due to a shortage of science teachers in the country, he teaches at two other secondary schools, where he earns similar salaries.

According to the country's minister of state for higher education, John Chrisom Muyingo, President Yoweri Museveni issued instructions for the salaries of science teachers and university science lecturers to be increased in a bid to boost science education.

He said the government resolved that in order to prevent highly educated people from leaving the East African nation in search of better opportunities abroad, a phenomenon known as brain drain, scientists needed to be paid better salaries.

"I urge girls to study science. They should stop thinking that science subjects are difficult and meant to be done by boys," said Muyingo, addressing students in a village north of the capital Kampala.

"Because the government regards science highly, science subjects in secondary schools have been made compulsory," said Ken Mukalazi, the head teacher of the Bugira secondary school in eastern Uganda.

- Government support for sciences

Supporting science and science-related innovations, the government has sponsored several projects and invested a substantial amount of funds in them. It has also worked to establish regional science parks, technology incubation hubs, and a $140 million scientific research and innovation fund.

Another project in which the government has invested $10 million is the Kiira Motors Corporation, a state enterprise making solar-powered electric vehicles. While a prototype has been developed, efforts are ongoing to build a facility for their mass-production.

"As one of its strategies to promote science, the government has established two universities of science and technology. They are Mbarara University of Science and Technology and Busitema University. It has also established several technical institutions all over the county," said Livingstone Waibale, the director of the Jinja Technical Institute.

The government also set up an innovation fund for university students that has helped the oldest university in the country, Makerere University, come up with several original innovations, with a particular focus on agriculture.

- COVID-19 treatments

COVID-19 is another area in which the government has invested heavily, with over $7 million in public funds having gone into pharmaceutical research and production. When COVID-19 hit the country, Museveni established the Presidential Scientific Initiative on Epidemics.

In a short period, the initiative managed to develop covidex and covilyce, two indigenous herbal medicines as a supporting treatment for viral infections, including COVID-19. They were both later approved by Uganda's National Drug Authority.

The teams that played a role in their development earned praise from people across the country.

One of such people expressing her gratitude was Hellen Namuli, a businesswoman in Kampala who said she rushed to the pharmacy when covidex was first rolled out.

"It was then that I realized the importance of promoting science in the country, because the drug was made by our own sons," she said.

Addressing members of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party at the State House in Entebbe, President Museveni said societies needed to embrace science and technology to prevent being dominated or exterminated.

He said: "Africa's lagging behind in technology did not only make them be dominated by colonialists but also by nature. That is the reason why they are still affected by floods, drought, diseases famine and many others."