The East-Central Africa Division (ECD) of the Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) church will be holding a Teachers Convention from August 27 to 29 this year (2008) at Baraton University . The convention will bring together teachers representatives from pre-school to University from all SDA run and sponsored schools, and yes, all SDA teachers teaching in various school and institutions of learning from the countries served by the ECD which include Burundi, Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Uganda, and Tanzania.
A keynote address will be given by the General Conference Director of Education, Dr. C. Garland Dulan and the Minister of basic education Hon. Prof. Sam Ongeri will officially open the convention on August 29.
The last such convention was held in 1998, in Morogoro – Tanzania when, Malawi , Zimbabwe , Botswana and Zambia were still part of this territory. In 2003, this territory was realigned to include the countries referred to above East and Central African Countries while dropping the later to belong to another territory of the SDA church in the Southern part of the continent. The church leadership is cognizant that synergy is needed amongst the teaching professionals. ‘There are more possibilities of achieving success when working together,” says Dr. Hudson E. Kibuuka the Education Director of the ECD, who is the main organizer of this convention.
It’s expected that during this convention teachers will learn from one another’s experiences, refresh themselves from the backdrop of coming from a mosaic of their countries and a matrix of educational systems. There will be opportunities for the teachers to establish long lasting relationships and collaboration with their colleagues from various parts of the world. Collective spiritual nourishment and sharing information on how to curb HIV/AIDS and drug abuse among the students and the community will be a prominent agenda. Yes, they will brainstorm on financial management – how the SDA run schools and institutions and even individual teachers will embrace self support trying to escape from the dependency syndrome.
At this forum, whose theme is dubbed as: Adventist education makes a difference: be fully involved; teachers, educationalist, and researchers on educational issues will have an opportunity to make presentation and share ideas. “This will be an open door gathering, but one needs to register with the Dean of Students Mr. Kimeto at Baraton university or with the East-African Union Department of Education to be a delegate,” is the leitmotif of Dr. Kibuuka.
On the past hurricane of strikes, where more than 300 schools were involved Dr. Kibuuka is of the idea that this challenge calls for a holistic approach. Pointing a finger to canning or lack of it, drug abuse, pos-election violence,…as the single cause of such moral decay falls short of offering an amicable answer.
“Education stands on three pillars: the home (parents), schools (teachers), and the community (church). These three pillars must complement one another to produce a society that is morally upright. When one of the pillars falter, moral decay takes precedence,” he says.
It’s the challenge to teachers, parents and the community (church) to produce students who are going to match into the future as agents of desired moral change: Students who will harness the media, peer pressure, and the internet in the right way.
Dr. Kibuuka based his argument on a research report on connectivity of the school, the community and the parent carried out a few year ago in Australia , where it was discovered that instances of unbecoming behaviors and violence reduced drastically when the three pillars of education complemented one another in their role and participation.
The director emphasized the need for SDA church maintained and sponsored schools to wake up from their academic slumber and size excellence at national level. Notwithstanding that good education can not be solely evaluated on the premise of performance a lone. Education is the harmonious development of the physical, the mental, and the spiritual powers.
“In the area of academics we have our own challenges like other private schools, struggling to make both ends meet in an elitist society where students are sent to various schools according to their performance and financial ability. But when ranking is done after the results come out it not based on who went to where, but what comes out. This is an issue that does not have easy answers,” he remarked.
It’s this need to improve that is compelling the church leadership and the teachers to come together and forge the way forward. They want to overcome the problem of settling for the ‘best’ in the simplistic understanding. Our goal is “higher than the highest human thought can reach is God’s ideal for His children,” he concurs with a Christian writer.
Responding why the church have embraced literature which was not part of the curriculum with the birth of the SDA institutions of learning; he said that, that was not a change of the mind rather revolving from the past and meeting contextual needs of the learners. “God is the source of all truth and knowledge, but the devil can pervert any field of study, even theology. It’s the approach to a topic or a subject that makes the whole difference. Everything needs to be thought carefully, appropriately, and with a right attitude.”
The church believes that students are supposed to be thinkers and not mere reflectors of other people’s ideas. The students should not be spoon fed rather be taught on how to do things themselves and how to make right, informed and guided decisions. God encourages us to go and reason with Him ‘Come let us reason together’. He says ‘look I put everything before you good and bad, life and death, choose life because of its advantages.' God is calling His people to be thinkers. Not to be overtaken by myths and every philosophy but to filter every information that comes on the way before deciding in consideration of the implication to others and one’s future.
Young people in our schools go through untold circumstances, not so easy to understand. Beyond the knowledge of parents, teachers and the community. They need to be encouraged not to give up with God in such situations. Like the Biblical Job who found himself in the cosmic controversy between God and Satan – his patience through the severe trial paid handsomely; after he was stripped off with everything at the end he was restored.
The church in endeavoring to be on the cutting age of research - it has set up several institutions of higher learning as well as research centers such as the Geoscience Research Institute which endeavors to affirm faith in God. You cannot go wrong with God.
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