International schools are very good. Let us not lie about that.
The facilities are good, the English is good, the exposure is good. But with the liberty that goes with it, parents need to be extremely careful and disciplined. Let me educate you where this idea came from.
For starters, international schools were designed for diplomats, ambassadors, and UN staff. Why? Because an ambassador from France posted to Uganda for three years cannot put his child in PLE system, then take him to Kenya next year to do Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE). The child would be lost.
So, they created a system that moves with the ambassador. Same syllabus in Kampala, same syllabus in New York, same syllabus in Tokyo. It was designed to fit the ambassador’s category; a child who is always on the move.
It was never designed to be a status symbol for a permanent resident of Buddu. Secondly, in Uganda today, international schools have become a fashionable style for social status. We take our children to these schools not because we are moving to Geneva next year, but because my neighbour’s child is there.
Because I want to post on WhatsApp, “My son at Green International.” Because I want to say my child studies with muzungu children. Ask yourself: How many of those children actually climb the education ladder?
Very few. I have seen it with my own eyes. Many are copying weird behaviors. Behaviors we did not have in our traditional schools. A child in S2 with dreadlocks and a tattoo, who calls the teacher “bro”.
A child in S3 who cannot greet a Jajja properly, cannot kneel, cannot speak Luganda, but knows all the lyrics of American gangster music. Let us make it a good centre for education, yes. But let us be honest about the aim of most people.
Most parents in international schools are not aiming at making a good Ugandan citizen. They are aiming at taking those young brains to Europe, America and the world of class. They go and never return.
We are busy exporting young brains we have not yet rooted. There is a reason why our parents bathed us in ekyogero. Those are our roots. What is the root of a child who has been in international school from two years?
He knows London more than where he will be buried in Kifuuta, Kyotera. He knows snow more than he knows coffee. He knows pizza more than he knows matoke. Then you wonder why he sells your land in Bukomansimbi to buy a ticket to America. So, this is not an insult, this is education.
Learn from our president. His children went through traditional Ugandan schools. Schools with discipline, with morning assembly, with agriculture, with respect. And today, those children are leaders. They are grounded.
They know Uganda because they were educated as Ugandans. If international schools were the only way to make a world-class child, would the first family not have taken that route first? They had all the money and all the access.
But they knew: Before you become an international citizen, you must first become a grounded Ugandan. Take your child to international school if you can afford it. But do not abandon your role. Be extremely careful.
Check what liberty they are being given. Liberty without discipline is destruction. Be disciplined yourself. A child you cannot control at 15 will not control themselves at 25. Give them a root before you give them wings.
Teach them their mother tongue. Take them to Buddu. Let them see coffee. Let them know Jajja. We need to know that education is not measured by one’s English accent. A child speaking with an American accent but with no respect and no hard work is an educated fool.
An international school should be a centre for education, not a centre for fashion and weird behaviours. Let us not produce children who are tourists in their own country. Remember your root, before you give your child the world.
The author is an investor, contractor, and football enthusiast.