by Andrew Mukwana
An international Muslim and Christian teachers dialogue took place from 2-6 June, 2011 in Uganda. This was an initiative of Uganda MRA/Initiatives of Change. Distinguished teachers from the United Kingdom, Middle East, United States of America, Nigeria, Egypt and other parts of the world shared their experiences. Scholars involved in developing their education systems and companies with products and services that help teachers, were invited and had the opportunity to have face to face interaction with those who are in need of their services and products.
The session commenced on 4 June with a welcome speech from Mr Andrew Mukwana, the secretary of MRA/ lofC. He thanked participants for attending and welcomed the panelists. On the panel were; Mr John Peter Onebe, representing the Chairman lofC Uganda; Mr Jamil Ssebalu; Mr Jonathan Kamwana, Jinja District Education Officer; and Sheikh Waiswa. The Dialogue was opened by Mr Kamwana. In his opening remarks, he emphasized the fact that change in society means looking at critical issues affecting that society and forging ways to deal with those issues. He said that teachers had a critical role to play in society by instilling values in young people for positive transformation of society by influencing them to adopt moral values; while discouraging them from the negative tendencies of immorality and corruption. Mr Kamwana further added that in Uganda the critical development issues include
- Lack of properly trained teachers and poor enumeration of teachers
- Poor physical infrastructure such as roads and hospitals
- Corruption and abuse of office
- Moral decay in society
He concluded his remarks by urging participants, who were mostly teachers, to focus their energies on these development issues instead of focusing on non-issues such as how many ministerial posts were awarded to Busoga region in the recent cabinet. He then officially declared the Teachers’ Dialogue open.
Mr Mukwana thanked the District Education Office, Jinja C, for his opening remarks and spoke to the participants about the four pillars on which lofC is founded. 'These pillars, love, honesty, purity and unselfishness, are the focal points of lofC and have helped start something in society, hence the Teachers’ Dialogue', he added. He spoke also about the various programmess of lofC.
Mr John Onebe, as chief Guest, told the participants that teachers were the conscience of society because of their role in shaping the future leaders in society.
