Dilemmas, Drawbacks and Trade-offs Entailed in Reforming a National Education System of a Resource Constrained Country: Reflections of a Practitioner Seminar

Majority of developing countries inherited education systems established by their colonial masters. Such systems were established to serve the interests of the colonialists without much regard to domestic development needs. Hitherto, there are reported mismatches between the development needs and challenges, and the solutions being provided by education systems. In part, this is due to the education systems not being fit-for-purpose. Consequently, many developing countries have embarked on education systems’ reform in hope of aligning their respective education systems to their development needs. Such countries include Uganda which is currently undergoing an education policy review. Whereas such reform processes promise hope, they as well risk being long lists of wishes in trying to accommodate the interests of various constituencies amidst resource constraints. This talk shares the practitioner’s reflections on the dilemmas, drawbacks, and trade-offs entailed in reforming a national education system of a resource-constrained country.

Speaker information

Hamis is a Ugandan Education Economist, a social sector planner, and a Prince2 certified project management professional. He has trained and worked in Africa, Europe and America (USA). He holds a PhD in Educational Economics Planning and Policy from the University of Southampton, UK; an MA in Educational Planning, Economics and International Development of the Institute of Education, University College London; an Msc in Accounting and Finance of Makerere University. Currently, Hamis heads Policy Research and Innovation at the National Planning Authority-Republic of Uganda where he has undertaken numerous programme/project and policy evaluations, ground breaking research studies and strategy development.