Government to rollout curriculum on family management

 

In Summary

• Toddlers of three years are sent to boarding school and complete the university having only had candid talks with their parents twice or so. Since we have decided to delegate all our parental and family responsibilities to schools, why can’t we demand that they are taught real values and social life skills?

By Jacobs Seaman Odongo

Truth. That is the one thing I tell by accident. But I swear upon Harry Kane’s goal claim that this is true. I even tried a lie detector just to be sure of what I am going to tell you but the machine angrily shut off.

I was in this eatery in Bugembe, Jinja, when a PLT [pretty little thing] entered with a suave chap. They took a table and the guy pulled out a copy of Sunday Monitor. They read together and the pretty little thing giggled. The guy’s eyes met mine and then he sidled to the PLT and whispered something in her ears. She giggled.

“Wow! They must be reading Empty Tin and they have noticed the very writer is here. I might sign my first autographs,” I hummed these in my chest as I bounced to their table.
The guy looked at me, then glowered at his date. The chic was terrified. She shook her head violently and said something I couldn’t click. The man then stood up, jeered into my befuddled face and spat out words that left me with such a furrowed conscience I felt like a harvested potato farm.

“You cheating pig!” he scowled at the PLT. “I noticed all the while this sugar-daddy was casting furtive glances at you, now you can have him all your cheap life.”
The PLT tried to protest that she didn’t even know me but the man was already up and out. I felt so bad, my apologies so insignificant.

Can you imagine the Education ministry still has our kids learning about who discovered the source of the Nile and how many stilettoes Napoleon Bonaparte’s wife had instead of the more important life skills? Should we be worried that our kids don’t know the value of X or that they learn life skills from Nollywood and Spanish soap operas?
“You’re too much, son,” said the bald guy I found popping badly fried grubs at the National Curriculum Development Centre office in Kyambogo.

“There is a lot of sex education and stuff in CRE classes that should help the average child learn how to manage emotions, love life and families.”
But it’s all twisted, I retorted. They study for marks, not enlightenment, so we end up with a generation that is susceptible to making relationship end with the letter T.

“Just look around you. Judith Babirye, Pastor Bujingo, MC Kats… only the older folks who learnt things from huts and ponds run their families well,” I added.
The man told me he had a meeting but that they will consider my protest and draft a curriculum for it but only if I woke up from this reverie.

Back to facts, virtually everyone is failing in managing their family and relationship generally. In such a stressed economy where even those with ‘majje’ are crying out loud, you have to feel for the rest of the mortals with insecurity on bodas, insecurity at their homes, insecurity in their sex life and fear to fart that people will take offence – yet don’t fear to steal public resources as if the latter is approved of.

The PLT and her insecure and extremely short-circuited lover confirmed that matters of relationship are so complicated the T is always at the ready to jump in and replace the P. Why should we have so many of the populace going emotionally berserk due to failure to manage relationships when there are schools busy teaching Pythagoras’ theorem that no one really ever applies in life anyway?

In the 80s, Franco Luambo Makiadi said that ‘Matata ya mwasi na mobali esila te na mokili’ (the problems between a wife and a husband will never end in this world). This song should not be in our bedrooms.
Years ago, when we still counted hours using dogs, pigs and horses, family management was such a salient thing, its position was only second to the gods.

Boys learnt how to manage the family from their father and would only move out with their wife after proving themselves. Girls were thoroughly taught the art of things.
The entire community was involved in bringing up a proper family. Today, communities are there to laugh at you when you ‘short-circuit’ on social media.

Toddlers of three years are sent to boarding school and complete the university having only had candid talks with their parents twice or so. Since we have decided to delegate all our parental and family responsibilities to schools, why can’t we demand that they are taught real values and social life skills?

editorial@ug.nationmedia.com