Uganda

Laws Affecting Education: Seven legal statues create the framework for education in Uganda. These statues begin with the Education Ordinance of 1927 mandating government control of schools, and extend to the Education Ordinances of 1942 and 1969. As important were the Makerere Ordinance of 1938, the Makerere College Act of 1949, the Kampala Act of 1970—which chartered Makerere University—and the Education Act of 1970 (Seers 1979). Under the Kampala Act of 1970, the president of Uganda serves as chancellor of the university. The chancellor appoints the vice chancellor and a deputy vice chancellor, who serves as provost and chief academic officer. To foster self-governance by the faculty, a University Council is mandated to control and administer the institution and a university faculty senate regulates admissions, academic standards, and all appointments.

Educational Philosophy: Colonial education policy was geared toward training low and middle level workers for government and missionary service. Africans learned more about London and New York than about Kampala and Jinja and became alienated from their own culture, traditions, and practices. Some Africans even became hostile toward their own culture, seeing it as "backward." From independence until the present two goals have taken priority in education:

1. making primary education universally available and equipping every Ugandan with the basic minimum skills needed to survive in a modern economy, while also appreciating and valuing their own and others cultures
2. providing for the manpower needs of Uganda and its expanding economy. (Obote 1969)

Education is designed to foster self-actualization, undersanding of the local community, as well as the nation of Uganda, of Africa and of the world, and textbooks reflect these new goals.