Fresh Kid has exposed gap in education policy for gifted and talented kids

Gifted Vs Talented kids

Watching the prodigy, Fresh Kid light up when asked to sing, and then shrinks into a typical seven years old when not discussing music is simply impressive.

Parents should be able to identify the unique traits that their children have prior to starting of school. Recognizing that a child is gifted, or talented helps avert the regular charges of misdemeanor that teachers who are often unprepared to identify gifts or talents, label against kids.

Research shows that children who are either gifted or talented, and those who may be both gifted and talented, tend to suffer social alienation within regular school system, get bored easily, and are called on often for acting-out when their motivation and learning needs are neither matched nor satisfied.

Rachel Mendell's 2009 article in Maclean magazine revealed that there are usually less than 0.5% of student identified as gifted or talented in a population of students. But these are national assets that the state should interest itself given the unique abilities and accommodation needs in the school system.

Importantly, gifted children demonstrate exceptional talents or abilities in one or more academic subjects such as math, science, history, geography and so forth. In contrast, talent, not to be confused with gift, means having natural aptitude or skills in one or more practical subjects such as music, dance, athletics, designs, arts, language and so forth.

Ugandan schools are designed to recognize, reward, promote or prune gifts, while despising talent.

Identifying and prioritizing gifted and talented students may be a matter of jurisdictional policy to encompass even the small population of kids who may be both gifted and talented.

In the developed nations, their education systems have evolved to ably identify and accommodate the gifted and talented students through scholarships. By enacting robust national education policies, specialized schools are set up and funded to accommodate, nurture, and celebrate the unique abilities of these students.

Unfortunately, the rigid colonial systems inherited by most African countries did not evolve, instead it constricted in function and purpose while striving to retain its colonial architecture.

The emergence of the 7 years old Patrick Ssenyonga, aka Fresh Kid has challenged this paucity of policy in our school system. Fresh kid is a sensational musical genius who represent the small percentage of extremely talented but often neglected or ostracized kids.

Moreover, such talented ones often drop out of school because of a hostile regular school environment or lack of resource support commensurate with their talent.

Imagine Fresh Kid subjected to a history class of Zwangendaba, Tipu Tip, Nabongo Mumia of Wanga, Khama II, the defund Tenessee Rift Valley Authority and so forth! He would drop out of school!

This may explain why, most of our musicians or artists are marginally educated or outright illiterates!

Government should develop accommodating policy with specialized schools to adsorb and prune talents or gifts. It is high time we started schools for the gifted and talented students. This would serve the kids better, instead of the Ministers threatening the parents of these kids for child neglect.

Certainly, government lacks a comprehensive package for early child development other than their processing every child through UPE and USE.  Marxist Educationist, Paulo Freire describes this system as banking alien and disempowering knowledge to kids.

Fresh Kids needs exposure to the basics of literacy, alright. But an emphasis on his trade – musicology, entertainment, and entrepreneurship in a social and physical environment that reinforces the nurturance of this talent is his path in life.

Our education system has a reputation for producing colonial-type work force – majorly job seekers. Fresh kid, when properly nurtured, is already born into his trade. Fresh Kid is capable of employing thousands, while appeasing millions.  

In this way, Ugandan schools kill talents. Inquire where former Namasagali College talents are!

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RONALD SSEBLIME: Where is the security for persons and property?

STATE VIOLENCE

In the 1990s, a then beaming Museveni would appear on TV promising security for persons and their properties. In fact, this promise featured prominently on their Leninist ten-point program.

While parts of Uganda enjoyed tranquil, this assurance was merely an assurance against a possibility of a past regime resurrecting. The main narratives were that insecurity in Uganda was caused by “murderous” and “chauvinist” northerners who were bitter for having ceded their colonial-era privileges of dominating the army.

Since 1986, a different group has dominated the army at every rank level with northerners and others marginalized to the periphery or even to corporate security. Unfortunately, Uganda still experiences violence, insecurity and torture that are occasioned and complicated by greater uncertainties over safety of persons and their properties.

The legacy of war in Northern Uganda remains a major scar in the conscience of this nation for complicity, of its victims for being inarticulately ephemeral, and its perpetrators – for genocidal intents. The same narratives that sustained these senseless wars have continued to divide this nation that has now come to a full circle for another liberation.

Importantly, the post-war era has also transformed how Ugandans view guns and those who own or use it, as ordinary brutes irrespective of whichever region they hail from.

One could ascertain that it was easier for Museveni to deceive Ugandans during times of war with a false promise of security to gain support he needed to legitimize his rule.

The narratives of violence in Uganda, however, begins and for now, ends with Mr. Museveni. Museveni has been the active ingredient of violent insurgency for most of Uganda’s history of violence from the 1970s. This is not a secret or desecration of the man. Read his biography where he boasts that Amin ruled over him for only a few days, and narratives of electing violence to dismantle the Obote establishment.

Mr. Museveni has dominated the framing of both narratives of violence and that of peace in this wretched country to suit is agenda.

When Sgt David Ssali shot and killed Mr. Ronald Ssebulime at Nagojje in Kayunga District, a person already hand-cuffed in police custody, it woke up people to ponder whether this affirms Mr. Museveni's promise for security of person and property, or rule of law.

Extra-judicial killings have instilled in Ugandans of all files and ranks, a pervassive sense of disillusionment in an unprecedented manner.  The violence we experience now is sectarian, which signifies a shift away from its traditional frontiers of the bushes into state organized urban and rural crimes.

The cold-blooded murder of a suspect in police custody, however, reveals a deeper concern over the contempt security operatives have over the sanctity of life of civilians and even of their own.

Assassination of Former ASP Kirumira, Andrew Felix Kaweesi, Joan Kagezi, Suzan Magara, Abiriga and several Muslim clerics were all works of professionals which suggests a linkage with state operatives.

These violent episodes were not random, rather systematic with unique manifestations. In Northern Uganda violence now manifests in land grab, forceful eviction of civilians, in Buganda, assassinations, Lusanja-type evictions and opposition tear-gassing.

Everywhere in Uganda, violence manifests in different forms such as corruption, dereliction of duty, extra-judicial murders, delayed salary areas, kidnaps for ransom and others. The impunity that accompanies these acts of violence is what amplifies its effect. Impunity suggests that the violence is insurmountable and subordinates both law enforcement (Police) and judiciary (Courts) which have lost their legitimacy as mediator of conflicts in society.

The question we have asked without an answer is whether the promise of security for person and their property has translated into the safety for Mr. Museveni, his lieutenants, family and regime.

End.