10/06/2013
This article was picked from the Daily Monitor and of Today 10th June 2013 pg. 18 and Authored by John K.Abimanyi and I thought it was worth sharing with the friends on this page.
Why you should be interested...
Kiswahili Usage in Uganda
Even before the Members of the East African Legislative Assembly and Uganda's President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, got to making it a talking issue last week, it was already too apparent that we need to up our game in our usage of Kiswahili, it is the defacto language of the region, one, without which you can hardly survive in places such as Tanzania.
The language is spoken in South Sudan to the North, Kenya to the East, Tanzania to the South West, the DR Congo to the West, and we, Uganda are right in the middle, but seem entirely aloof to it. Sitting right in the middle of the gem-field of a market makes Uganda strategically placed, and tuning ourselves into the right communication channels will enable us to tap the opportunities that abound.
The president promised that he will follow the matter of teaching Kiswahili in lower primary school personally. It is not the first time that he saying something along those lines. The intention to fully integrate Kiswahili lessons into our syllabus ha been around us for decades now. But it has not been implemented, and the president has indeed been the head of state close to three decades now.
You should be concerned enough to register the importance of that language (Swahili) to Uganda's survival and the competitive advantage within the region. We would surely not want to be left behind by the bus that finally drives East Africa into economic maturity. And that is why you should be concerned about Swahili.