All students completing Senior Six in Uganda are set to undergo a compulsory patriotism and leadership training programme at the National Leadership Institute (NALI) in Kyankwanzi, with the government planning to keep them at the institute for about six months.
The programme, according to the Commissioner of the National Secretariat for Patriotism Corps (NSPC), Hellen Seku, is expected to start this year and will target Senior Six vacists as part of a broader government effort to promote patriotism, discipline, national identity and responsibility among young Ugandans.
Seku announced the plan at Immaculate Heart Girls’ Secondary School Nyakibale in Rukungiri District, where more than 1,700 students from four institutions had completed a week-long patriotism training programme.
She said the decision had been agreed upon with President Yoweri Museveni and would see all Senior Six vacists taken to Kyankwanzi for an extended course.
“I can assure you, head teacher, we are going to begin this year. So, this year we agreed with Jajja [President Museveni] that all Senior Six vacists are going to Kyankwanzi. You’re going to go for about six months,” Ms. Seku said.
The planned six-month programme would represent a significant expansion of the patriotism training currently conducted for selected groups of students.
Seku also indicated that the government intends to extend refresher training to teachers and school administrators who have either never undergone the programme or have not participated in it for a long time.
“All patrons and coordinators are going to do a refresher course, including teachers and head teachers who have not yet trained, even those who have taken long. We want everybody to undergo the training,” she said.
From schools to the wider youth population
The announcement comes as the NSPC expands its activities beyond conventional school-based programmes to reach young people in universities, higher institutions of learning and the informal sector.
The students who completed the latest programme at Nyakibale were drawn from Immaculate Heart Girls’ Secondary School Nyakibale, Karoli Lwanga Institute of Health Sciences, Kinyasano Girls’ High School and Makobore High School.
During the week-long programme, the students attended ideology sessions conducted by different trainers and participated in early-morning drills and parades.
The patriotism programme is designed to promote what the NSPC describes as good norms and values among young people while exposing other sections of society to the same training.
Seku said the secretariat had received a broader mandate to take patriotism education to young people outside the formal school system, including those working in the informal economy.
“That’s what we are doing here, and we want to thank His Excellency once again, for he has now given us the mandate to go to higher institutions, to go to all the youth in the informal sector. That’s why you saw us taking boda boda men to Kaweweta for training,” Seku said.
She also pointed to programmes involving Ugandans returning from South Africa as another component of the government’s wider effort to expose citizens to ideological and patriotism training.
NALI’s renewed role
The expanded programme places NALI at the centre of the government’s efforts to provide ideological, leadership and patriotism training to young people.
Kyankwanzi has previously hosted programmes involving students and other groups of Ugandans, combining classroom-based ideological sessions with physical exercises, drills and other activities.
The new plan would make such training a much more extensive part of the transition for students completing secondary school, with the entire Senior Six cohort expected to pass through the programme.
Seku also acknowledged the role of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces in supporting the patriotism programme, particularly through the provision of instructors.
“We want to thank the CDF [Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba] because every time we write to him asking for instructors from a certain region, he is always quick to respond,” she said.
The planned Senior Six programme therefore represents a broader push by the NSPC to make patriotism training a national undertaking, extending from secondary schools to higher education institutions and young people working outside the formal economy.
