How Anti-anti-Ethnocentrism Might Offer a Useful Lens through which to READ Educational Reforms in Uganda as more than Fitting a ‘Square Peg in a Round hole’

eng Science and Education Publishing American Journal of Educational Research 2327-6150 2022-07-11 10 7 444 451 10.12691/education-10-7-3 EDUCATION20221073 article How Anti-anti-Ethnocentrism Might Offer a Useful Lens through which to READ Educational Reforms in Uganda as more than Fitting a ‘Square Peg in a Round hole’ Cornelius Ssempala 1 Peter Mpiso Ssenkusu 1 John Mary Vianney Mitana j.mitana@jmerc.org, mitanavianney@yahoo.com 2 College of Education and External Studies, Makerere University, Kampala-Uganda JM Education and Research Centre (JMERC), Kampala, Uganda Numerous research efforts in Africa south of the Sahara have suggested that reforms to improve quality of learning environments through teacher re-training and curriculum reform are bound to fail. Teacher-centred pedagogies which presuppose a universally given ‘order of things’ are more efficient for teaching dogmatic learning of scientific facts and principles, while progressive discovery approaches tended to be more effective in promoting progressive scientific attitudes and skeptical-critical understandings that are not typically African. The discussion is meant to highlight, contrary to rampant ‘reform pessimism’, the liberating nature of recent reforms as they render neo-Kantian notions of a unilinear, formalistic and anti-ethnocentric curriculum de facto problematic. Signs of hope and renewal for the Ugandan girl child in the wake of Covid-19 lockdown are highlighted in support of mindset shift away from ‘purely’ formalistic rules and principles. http://pubs.sciepub.com/education/10/7/3/education-10-7-3.pdf collective identity liberalism cultural relativism formalism and social constructivism gessellschaft and wahlverwandtschaft connoisseurs of justice and love citizens of nation states consumers in a corporate world