Science and Technology for Uganda

I recently visited Uganda for a couple of weeks to help with an assessment of science and technology in that country. Uganda is a very poor country. As such it epitomizes a problem for donor organizations. Those organizations have been able to provide assistance to more developed nations to strengthen their scientific and technological capabilities. But it has been difficult for the donors to find modalities to work on S&T in countries where the S&T sector is small. In part I suppose this is due to the small absorptive capacity of these S&T sectors and need for the donors to have relatively large projects to cut down on the relative size of the project transaction costs (design, monitoring, management, etc.).

If you think about it, it seems obvious that countries to have large scientific and technological communities and strong systems of S&T institutions must generate the resources to support them. Large countries such as India and China have been able to do so even when having a low per capita GDP, because their populations were so large. Small countries, such as the Scandenavian nations, have strong S&T capacities because they are rich. Efforts to generate resources for S&T on a regional basis where the nations individually don’t have the resources have not seemed successful, in part because the donors don’t know how to fund regional S&T capacity. Thus the Caribbean nations or the Central American nations have failed to support strong institutions serving the regions.

Perhaps some reflections on Uganda might help throw some light on how donors might better support S&T in countries with weak S&T sectors.

The large majority of adults in Uganda have less than a primary school education. The workforce is mostly rural and agricultural, belonging to more than 50 tribal cultures.

I suspect that better understanding of the physical world would help a lot. I am talking about understanding of infectious diseases, and how to prevent their spread; understanding of basic nutrition and hygiene; understanding of crop nutrition, pests and diseases on the part of farmers; understanding of common animal diseases and nutrition problems on the part of those raising livestock.

I also suspect that better understanding of technology would help a lot. I would included understanding of simple machines by the general workforce; understanding at a basic level of electricity and electrical machines and devices (by the urban populations); understanding of internal combustion engines and vehicles (especially by the people who operate them).

This is not rocket science and technology, and should be taught to kids in elementary school. One issue is to get these topics in the elementary curriculum, and in Uganda there is hope since agriculture is taught in the schools. Another issue is to get these subjects taught well. If teachers really understood these materials and how to teach them, it would be possible to draw on readily available materials in the environment for teaching. But teachers face huge classes in most schools, and that would make it hard for even a good teacher to cope and communicate. Unfortunately, most teachers at the primary school are not only themselves the products of a system staffed by teachers who did not teach science and technology well, but they have relatively little education and little S&T content within that education.

Perhaps a good place to start building S&T capacity in Uganda would be in the training of elementary school teachers to better teach basic scientific understanding and basic technology. Now many primary school teachers go to teachers training institutions, and many just receive on-the-job training – both should be improved. To get any improvement in real time, retraining of primary school teachers would be an urgent priority. But the teaching cadre is vastly overextended dealing with a student population that has increased hugely over the past decade. So how do you get the teachers the time to learn how to teach better? I have no solution.

Another issue is that kids don’t stay in school long enough to learn enough appropriate science and technology to solve their problems in Uganda. I think good schooling is likely only to help the kids make connections with institutions that will provide real solutions. Unfortunately in Uganda there are not adequate institutionalized networks providing such information. Health facilities are weak, poorly financed, and poorly staffed. Agricultural extension and market mechanisms for the provision of agricultural information are weak. The mass media don’t reach most people with scientific and technological information. All these elements should be strengthened as part of an S&T approach.

Secondary school science and technology teaching also must be improved. Until now, few students completed secondary school in Uganda, and they often followed a curriculum that is modeled after the British curriculum of a generation past. That is now expected to change, as the wave of students who entered primary school under the UPE program hits high school. Primary school teachers, SME entrepreneurs, technicians, and those who will go on to the university to obtain professional degrees all pass through the secondary education system. Improving S&T in the secondary schools will involve improving curriculum, training teachers, and providing better facilities.

Many secondary schools are currently seen as giving terminal S&T training, preparing their students for technical or paraprofessional jobs. Moreover, it seems that many if not most of those who will go to the university (especially to study S&T professions) probably will attend private secondary schools. To the degree that there is a tracking of people in secondary schools, the curricula should probably reflect that that fact. For students terminating their studies after secondary school, it would seem that education should give them practical understanding and technological skills that can be used in their working lives; those going on to the university might be given more theoretical understanding to enable them to master further S&T training. Still, everyone going to secondary school in the next decade in Uganda is likely to see radical changes in the country, and to need radically different skills and understanding over the course of a working career, and S&T education should help them to face the challenges of such changes.

Uganda provides university education for a smaller portion of its citizens than the average African nation, and a smaller portion of university students are in S&T courses than in other African nations. Shockingly, a follow-up study of people after their school years indicated that more than half of Uganda’s 1980 university graduates had either died or left Uganda. A surprisingly large percentage of those graduating from the university go on for further education, and outside the health field, a surprisingly large portion of the university graduates don’t work in the field for which they were trained. Uganda has a long way to go before developing a cadre of professional S&T workers of adequate size.

I was especially struck by the lack of engineers. The electrical system in the country is radically inadequate. Mobile phones have reduced the pressure on the telephone system, but the system remains very inadequate. Railroads have deteriorated. The road system was the focus of a lot of investment over the last decade, but the new roads are described as deteriorating quickly. The lack of engineered infrastructure creates huge economic inefficiencies. I assume that there is a relationship between the lack of engineers and the problems with the infrastructure. I would guess it is important to start quickly to improve engineering education, but that will be of little use unless good jobs are created for the graduates, and the engineering graduates are put to work to assure the development and functioning of an improved infrastructure. Perhaps a financing mechanism to promote improved technical staffing in key sectors would help – either through grants or through some human-capital budgeting process for government.

Uganda is a small, open economy. It should seek to import the vast majority of its technology from abroad. A portion of this should be imported with inflowing foreign direct investment. However, it seems likely to me that a lot of the technology Uganda needs is not flowing through international commerce. The non-commercial technologies would include, importantly, agricultural, health, educational, and small enterprise technologies. South-south, non-commercial linkages would seem critical in transferring such technologies. How to build and maintain such linkages is a challenge on which I have little to offer. One offering is travel – Ugandans have to get out of Uganda, make contacts with others, and bring their discoveries back to Uganda. The work that has been done over the past decades in creating a network for the improvement of crops (CGIAR, National Agricultural Research Systems, etc.) illustrates both that progress can be made in institutionalizing modern global and national technology information systems, and that doing so is a very serious undertaking, requiring lots of resources and long term continuity!

Surely another characteristic of success in acquiring technology from abroad is to have scientifically and technologically literate Ugandans who can serve as gatekeepers and agents for the country. Again in this respect, I suggest that it is important to have stronger training in S&T in universities and secondary schools. It is also important to recognize that a lot of the technology acquisition will be done by generalists who have some technological understanding – and the education of non-S&T professionals in S&T is especially lacking in Uganda. It is also critically important to institutionalize rewarding rolls for such gatekeepers and agents in Ugandan society.

Research and development (R&D) is important. There is an essential national research agenda in Uganda, as in any country. The country’s problems have to be identified and its resources catalogued. Technologies from abroad will need to be adapted to Ugandan circumstances. Moreover, technology gatekeepers do a better job if they understand the frontiers of technology as well as the innovation process. Moreover, new members of the S&T based professions are best training in an environment in which R&D is being done and in which they can participate in the R&D. There is already a health R&D capacity in Uganda as well as capacity for agricultural R&D. These will almost surely be given high priority for further strengthening. Surprisingly, there is a capacity for ICT R&D, at least in the field of software development. It seems likely that further investments would be appropriate, perhaps including facilities in the university for development of labor-intensive, capital-saving, environmentally sustainable technologies for farmers and small businesses.

I would suggest that more important is the importation of technology, and efforts should be directed to that end.

Quality assurance is also strongly technological in nature. There are several Ugandan institutions working in this field, but quality should be a concern for every producing unit, be it agricultural, manufacturing or service based. Managers and workers should have the technological mastery and skills to produce products of good quality.

It is a mistake to assume that science and technology are what you read about in the S&T sections of daily newspapers, or see featured on television. Rockets and space travel, cosmology, robotics and artificial intelligence, and paleontology are all very interesting, but they have little practical importance to the average Ugandan. On the other hand, the ability to produce things for sale in international commerce, the ability to create and maintain the nation’s physical infrastructure, and the ability to reduce the burden of disease are critically important to the average Ugandan. Donor efforts to build S&T capacity should focus on these basic but vital areas of scientific knowledge and technological mastery.