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 Ssempala¹, Peter Mpiso Ssenkusu¹ and John Mary Vianney Mitana^2,

¹College of Education and External Studies, Makerere University, Kampala-Uganda

²JM Education and Research Centre (JMERC), Kampala, Uganda

Cite this paper:
Cornelius Ssempala, Peter Mpiso Ssenkusu and John Mary Vianney Mitana. 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’. American Journal of Educational Research. 2022; 10(7):444-451. doi: 10.12691/education-10-7-3

Abstract

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.

Keywords:
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

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