CHAPTER FOUR: The history and context of literacy and adult literacy education in Uganda
4.3 Introduction of literacy in Uganda
The introduction of literacy in Uganda, as in most Sub-Saharan countries, was a result of encounters with people from outside Africa. Before these encounters, all the communities that make up what Uganda is today were preliterate societies16. Communication was largely by word of mouth carried by messengers of different status depending on the type and value of the message to be communicated. For example, to pass simple messages from one home/person to the next, children were used as messengers. Important messages like bereavement were delivered by adults only. Other methods of communication included beating drums and blowing animal horns in different ways, and shouting loudly17 while standing on strategic locations or on top of anthills in the village. These too involved the production and delivery of sound as the basic mode of communication traditional preliterate Uganda. Other modes of communication like tying grass, dressing, marking the grounds and trees, and marking of bodies (Jones et al., 2005), were also used to carry different forms of socially and culturally agreed messages. These were non-sound based indigenous strategies of communication18.
In 1844, the Arab traders who came from the coastal regions of East Africa became the first people to use written texts in Uganda. They brought the Koran, a Moslem book of worship. The Arabs had a long trade relationship with people along the East African coastal region, around Mombasa and Dar-es-Salaam. As they traded, they practiced and introduced their Islamic faith to the local people with whom they traded. The practice of the Islamic faith involves the use of written texts that are often written in Arabic script.
Although the Arab traders were the first to introduce the use of written texts in Uganda, they were not keen on teaching the local people how to read and write in Arabic script, because they were more concerned with trade. Even teaching Islam was a secondary activity for the Arab traders. This lack of interest by Arabs in changing the people to their way of life did not encourage the adoption and wide use of the Arabic script in East Africa outside the practice of the Islamic faith. The Arab traders, of course, taught some people who showed interest in joining their Islamic religion and these people learnt how to use the Arabic script as part of their Islamic religious practices (Atim & Ngaka, 2004;
Egbo, 2000; Okech, 2004; Openjuru, 2004b; Ssekamwa, 2000).
16 These are societies or communities with no cultures of writing or using a written symbol system for purposes of communication (Goody, 1968b).
17 This was often used to call children back home for meals or to undertake some simple tasks.
18 The information used in this paragraph is based on my childhood experience of rural life in Uganda, where these methods of communication continued to be used up to the early 1970s. Some are still being used as reported in the findings of this study.
In the late 19th century, Christian missionaries started arriving in Uganda. The first group to arrive were the Church Missionary Society (CMS) from England
(Anglicans/Protestants) in 1877. The CMS was later followed by the Catholic White Fathers from France (Roman Catholics) in 1879. Both groups of missionaries came to preach their different denominations of the Christian religious faith. Both Christian religious faiths were based on a book, the bible, as the main text of authority and reference. As a religion of the book, the missionaries taught their converts how to read and write to enable them to practice their Christian faith (Okech, 2004; Ssekamwa, 2000).
The first group of literacy learners in Uganda were adults. The missionaries taught these adults how to read and write in their mission stations. Later, when the teaching and learning expanded beyond the evangelistic needs of the community, the missionaries started teaching children as well. This eventually led to the establishment of the first formal schools in 1898 (Okech, 2004; Ssekamwa, 2000). Through the formal schools the missionaries expanded the teaching of reading and writing in Uganda. They also
continued to popularise literacy through the practice of the Christian religious faith.
To support their teaching of reading and writing, the missionaries developed the first orthographies for most local languages in Uganda. They used these orthographies to translate the bible, prayer books, and hymn books into different local languages (see Kalema, 2001). The first bible in a local language, Luganda, was produced in 1896 (Walusimbi, 2001). In 1902, Bishop Tucker found that the complete Bible, translated by George Pilkington, had sold over 1100 copies in its year of publication together with over 4000 copies of the New Testament and 13,500 copies of single gospel translations. were sold out. The number of ‘reading rooms’, reading teachers and readers who were not only interested in reading but understanding what they were reading was also increasing (see Oliver 1965, cited in Okech, 2004, p. 184). The Protestants were particularly active in promoting literacy in Uganda, as this statement will confirm:
At the end of 1893 the protestant community at the capital experienced a typical manifestation of evangelical ‘revivalism’ but associated in this case with one of the most remarkable and spontaneous movements for literacy and new knowledge which the world has ever seen (Oliver 1965, p. 184 cited in Okech, 2004, p. 183).
By teaching their converts how to read and write in the local languages of Uganda, and translating the bible and many other religious texts into the local languages, the missionaries popularised and legitimised local language literacy in Christian religious practices. The missionaries further consolidated this by importing the first printing press to be used in Uganda, and starting to print more books in the local Ugandan languages.
With the printing press now in Uganda, the missionaries introduced the first Luganda19 language newspapers in Uganda (Byakutaga & Musinguzi, 2000; Kasozi, 2000). The work done by the missionaries consolidated local language literacy within Christian religious practices and embedded Christian religious literacy in people’s everyday life in Uganda (Okech, 2004; Parry, 2000a).
The missionaries established physical facilities, which they used for their church activities in the communities. These facilities included church and school buildings, and residential houses. Most of these facilities were strategically located in rural communities that needed adult literacy programmes. Both government and Non-Governmental
Organisations (henceforth NGOs) in Uganda now use some of these facilities to run their adult literacy programmes for rural people (Openjuru, 2004c).
The missionaries established the first formal school education in Uganda in about 1898.
In these schools, the missionaries continued to teach their Christian knowledge and practices to local children. Ssekamwa (2000) recorded this when he quoted a 1925 Annual Report of the Uganda Department of Education. In that report, the missionaries stated, “The idea that dominates our school system may be summed up clearly and concisely first and foremost, the spiritual interests of the child are paramount to every other matter and these divine interests are supreme” (Ssekamwa, 2000, p. 39).
In these schools, the missionaries continued to teach reading and writing, and learning new knowledge took the form of reading books and writing notes. This mode of learning was very new to Ugandans who started referring to schools as ‘reading homes’ in most local languages, (For example, ‘Gang Kwan’ in the Ugandan Luo language). When a new parish is established, one building is used for both teaching and church services during the weekdays and weekends respectively (see also Okech, 2004; Ssekamwa, 2000).
Unlike in their religious teaching, the missionaries encouraged the use of English in their formal schools. In this way, the introduction of school education extended the use of reading and writing further by providing a new way and language of literacy outside of the church, religion, and local languages use. This new English literacy learnt at school by the younger generations became more powerful and dominant and tended to denigrate local language literacy that was being taught through the church. By encouraging English literacy in schools, while at the same time encouraging local language literacy in the church and religious practices, the missionaries created a conflicting language and
19 This is one of the local Ugandan languages spoken by the Baganda, a big ethnic group in Uganda. All foreigners who came to Uganda first settled in Buganda.
literacy situation in Uganda. This conflict worked against local language literacy, which gradually became less privileged and unpopular in Uganda. English literacy became more dominant because English became the language of power and of the ruling local elites who were school educated and employed by the colonial government. This group had access to many privileges that also became identified with English and school literacy.
Parry (2000b, p. 62) summed up this well by saying that school literacy “has a powerful social function” of controlling access to higher social status in society. School literacy therefore enables access to the dominant structures of power in society at both local and international level.
Although schools became and maintained a dominant social and economic influence in Uganda, the African traditional ways of life persisted at the community and family level.
In rural areas, life continued to be based on the communities’ old, traditional, social and economic structures and modes of production. The community, in contrast to school education, continued to propagate traditional values and knowledge through indigenous systems of education (Ocitti, 1988). Children were being exposed to both the western colonial system of education in schools and their local African indigenous system of education while at home in the family. Those children who could not go to school only learnt through African indigenous education (Ocitti, 1988; Ssekamwa, 2000). This effect of schooling created a dual character in the structure of everyday life in Africa. In this dualism, literacy is more prevalent in the way of life propagated through school education than through the traditional indigenous system of education. School literacy with its privileges of employment, was associated with work and modern European ways of life, and its use only found meaning in contexts where such life could be lived like in urban centres. In the rural areas, where traditional ways of life remained predominant, reading and writing had limited use.
In addition to teaching religion and introducing school education, the missionaries also introduced technical education in Uganda. In these technical schools, the missionaries taught carpentry and joinery, brick making, building houses using bricks, modern farming practices and many other practical skills. They also established other training institutions like teacher training colleges, leadership training centres and built more facilities that are now being used for adult and other forms of non-formal education in Uganda (Atim &
Ngaka, 2004; Openjuru, 2004c). These institutions were instrumental in promoting the way of life in which literacy was seen to be relevant by the local people.
Before the entry of government into adult literacy work in 1945, only the different Christian religious groups were involved in teaching people how to read and write. The literacy work of these religious groups was primarily for advancing their religious interests in Uganda. Each religious group had a different influence on the literacy practices of their followers. Parry (2000a, p. 63) outlines these differences as follows:
For Muslims, the sacred text must always be presented in Arabic and ideally, it should be recited rather than read; the written text serves mainly, then, as a mnemonic. For Catholics, too, the sacred text and accompanying liturgical material though in written form, are made accessible through oral means, but there is less emphasis in this tradition on learning text by heart. The Protestant tradition, on the other hand, lays particular emphasis on individuals reading of text for themselves which means it must be rendered in the individual’s own language and learning to read becomes an essential religious activity
The success of religious literacy20 in Uganda was because of this close link between religions (Christianity and Islam) and literacy. The practice of these new religions integrates the use of texts naturally and provides the immediate milieu within which literacy is regularly used.
The primary objective of the missionary literacy work was not literacy but teaching their religion. This religious teaching involved teaching reading to enable the converts to read religious books for themselves. Although not much is known about the methods used by the missionaries to teach literacy because they were not well documented, they must have used traditional methods, which emphasised learning the letters of the alphabet first before moving on to the vowels, consonants, and syllables. Whatever the merits and demerits of these methods, the missionaries seem to have been successful in their literacy work, if the extent to which religious literacy became rooted in the religious life of most Christians in Ugandan can be taken as positive signs of success (see Parry, 2000a). Since they taught literacy for practicing the Christian faith, it can be argued that the
missionaries applied the functional approach to teaching literacy well before UNESCO recommended it.
Literacy teaching by the different religious groups was mainly for the advancement and practice of their religion. For that reason, many reading materials were developed and printed for the advancement of these causes. Good as this was, it only focused on one aspect of social life, ignoring all others. It was not, therefore, useful for developing a literate culture that could facilitate a wide use of reading and writing in all aspects of everyday life.
20 This refers to the use of reading and writing in religious practice like prayers, Sunday service, and reading texts like the bible for spiritual growth.