Browsing by Author "Openjuru, George Ladaah"

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    Admission of Non-Traditional Students in the 21st Century Universities: A Tradition of Transformations
    (East African Journal of Education Studies, 2025) Lwanga, Jordan Byekwaso; Ngaka, Willy; Openjuru, George Ladaah
    This article analyzes the transformations in the organization and governance of admissions for older adults (non-traditional students – NTSs) in higher education at one of the public universities in Uganda. Adulthood demands acquiring new coping strategies and skills to adapt to the requirements of new and emerging roles. This demand goes beyond depending on introductory training and informal experiences based on cultural wisdom. A growing belief underscores HE as a critical tool in responding to these demands. To champion this belief, many universities are contextually defining and implementing admission decisions to select deserving adults to enrol for university education. We collected qualitative data from university managers (some of whom doubled as academics), mature age coaches, and graduate and continuing non-traditional students. The purpose of this article was to analyze how institutional decisions on the admission of non-traditional students have evolved and their implications on the future development of the HE sector. This article illustrates and concludes by raising awareness among current and future sector managers and scholars who might be new to NTSs on how institutional decisions leading to their enrolment emerged and their implications for future practice
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    Despite knowledge democracy and community based participatory action research, voices from the global South and excluded North still missing
    (Action Research, 2015) Openjuru, George Ladaah; Jaitli, Namrata; Tandon, Rajesh; Hall, Budd
    The primary purpose for this special issue of Action Research Journal ( ARJ ) focusing on knowledge democracy, community-based participatory action research (CBPAR) was to draw attention to and raise debate about knowledge exclusion of and alternative forms of knowing in the global South as well as to bring to the fore the perspective of authors from the global South. We understand the global South to include the excluded epis- temologies from the global North such as Indigenous Researchers from the First Nations People from Canada. Reflecting on the 12 submissions that were made for this special issue reveals how even within supportive knowledge and research paradigms that are meant to promote marginalized scholarships, the global South and excluded North still remains excluded.
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    From extra-mural to knowledge transfer partnerships and networking: The community engagement experience at Makerere University
    (Perspective, Prospects and Challenges, NIACE, London., 2012) Openjuru, George Ladaah; Ikoja-Odongo, John Robert
    Community engagement/services, outreach activities or extra-mural services are a core function of all universities. According to Atim (2004), the history of these services in Makerere University dates back to 1953 with the formation of the Department of Extra-Mural Studies to help prepare the country for independence. This combination of services remains a core function but is now one of the strategic goals and objectives of the university, based on its vision and mission (Makerere University, 2008a). Makerere University is unusual in that it can demonstrate some university-wide strategies and structures to promote this work.
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    From Their Experience: A Thread of Participation Uncertainties Amongst Adult Returnees at a University in a Developing Context
    (East African Journal of Education Studies, 2024) Lwanga, Jordan Byekwaso; Ngaka, Willy; Openjuru, George Ladaah
    Learning in adulthood offers prospects for (re)defining and strengthening our self-worth for sustainable personal survival, growth, and development. The rate at which adults enroll in university studies upholds the longstanding belief that education is an enabler for social participation, progress, and transformation. An adult, who chooses to stop learning chooses to stagnate in adulthood. However, sometimes, their decision to return to class is submerged in circles of uncertainties that impede their social integration and participation in a system that was not originally designed for them. This article uses the principle of inclusion of the social justice perspective to explore the nature of adult returnees’ participation uncertainties and their implications on the teaching and learning processes. We draw our findings from narratives of adult returnees and academic staff at a public university in Uganda. This study acknowledges that adult returnees experience multiple issues that humiliate, obstruct, and hinder their participation and learning aspirations. However, this should not be grounds for underrating what they can do and achieve during a learning encounter. We suggest learner support systems and instruction practices that restore these learners’ confidence and stimulate and guide their participation in the teaching and learning process
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    Literacy as placed resource in the context of a rural community member’s everyday lives: The case of Bweyale in Uganda
    (Routledge, 2016) Openjuru, George Ladaah
    Literacy is a placed resource that is used differently in the different places of everyday life in rural communities. Bweyale is a multilingual rural community in Uganda. In this chapter, I report a study of rural community literacy use in Bweyale to show how literacy used varies from one place to another. Literacy pervades every aspect of rural community life and rural people use literacy in many rich and creative ways. Contexts for literacy use include rural community livelihoods, education, religion, bureaucracy, household and personal life. The ethnographic study reported in this chapter was informed by the theory of literacy as social practice. The findings show that literacy use is influenced by activities which are embedded in the different spaces in which people are involved as they live their everyday lives.
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    The Role of Religion in Written Language Maintenance and Shift in Uganda
    (Multilingual Matters., 2019) Openjuru, George Ladaah
    The primary focus of this chapter is the ambivalent role of religion in language maintenance and shift in Uganda. This chapter draws its theo-retical framework from the work of Pauwels (2005) on language mainte-nance and shift. Indeed, Pauwels’ contribution is central to this area and provides a very good definition of language maintenance and shifts in the context of language contact. Furthermore, she considers factors and forces promoting both language maintenance and shift, relevant to the case of Uganda and the Christian religion. Basically, according to Pauwels (2005), both phenomena of language maintenance (LM) and language shift (LS) come about in the context of language contact. An outcome of this process is that one language may give way to the other as the domi-nant language.The contact of significance in this Ugandan language landscape was between European Christian missionaries and native Africans in Uganda. The missionaries introduced two aspects of language use: literacy, which contributed to language maintenance, and formal school education, which promoted the use of English in favor of local languages. The Christian missionaries created two powerful social institutions in Uganda: school and church. These two social institutions produced the conflicting forces of both LM and LS in the Ugandan language landscape, as I shall show in this chapter. Language use in this chapter will be con-sidered largely in terms of the written text (literacy) and to some extent spoken language as well.Religion, language, literacy and education have always been associated in Africa to the same degree as in other parts of the world. The three noted ‘Religions of The Book’ are Islam, Christianity and Judaism (Kapitzke,1999). Accordingly, religion, especially the Christian religion, through the activities of its missionaries, has done a lot in spreading alphabetic literacy in Africa (Venezky, 1999) and has triggered both LM, through the development of orthographies and printing in local languages, and LS, through the introduction of school education based on the use of English as the language of instruction and power in Uganda. Before going into a detailed discussion, it is important to look at the language context in Uganda. I will draw on the literature and also refer briefly to my field notes.