Sophism is draining our professionalism in Uganda

Helping students to experience the responsibility and satisfaction of serving others should be a major concern for educators of both public and private schools. Schools must provide service learning in order to prepare our students and future citizens respectively to take their role in the “Global Mission” of the church prior to the return of Jesus Christ.

The word service has today taken on many meanings in today’s societies and has been categorized into various levels. One underlining truth remains consistent within its interpretations, and that is an intangible act rendered and measured by the satisfaction or disaffection of the receiver. The philosophy of service is found in the belief that to be of good service is to serve God. The structure of society is diverse and so too is its view of service which is reflected in the priority or lack thereof given to policies aimed at developing a culture of service.

Stressing the crux of my cry “sophism is draining our professionalism in Uganda”, this comes after having observed most Ugandans trying hard to divert their professional demands to a sophism nature. We shall identify the sophism in our different vocations tracing back the nature of sophists in ancient philosophy, these were the people who availed their services because of money. It was called a disservice in a real sense by Socrates, he could not believe a person to sell of his own gifted nature to the public!

As a country which has attained the orphanage independence, we have plaited our minds with an ingratiate culture to grab the little that has been left for us which is soon to be done in a while. Responsibility is all about having a brotherly concern for the less privileged. This is not for our education system in Uganda, it is now all man for himself, this is draining our professionalism. The very fact that our professionalism is missing out its core ethical virtues, it is an indicator that we are yet to be ushered into a system of being loathly against the norms of humanity which is love of service.

The widows offering – Mark 12:41-44. We shall identify the theme of this scripture verse as “Givers never lack” the purpose of the passage is to explain what true service is: being willing to give everything you have, even your livelihood, for the sake of God. Those who merely contribute from their own surplus or in need of a pay in the end aren’t sacrificing anything, and therefore their contributions will not be considered much by God. 

Whenever we hope for the best in our various professional careers, we need to go back to the roots of service. The very tropism of sophism in our country is yet to give birth to poor professionalism. We have seen a multi number of cases of examination malpractice which are caused by the very disparities said above hindering us to being true stewards of our respective professions. We have seen what we call prominent people in our country acting filly because of money in the end, this has stomached corruption to a larger extent.

We need to understand, whenever we act unprofessionally because of love for money, our country will practically be in a total abstract world in the near future. Classism is coming at hand unless we pay attention to true service which even much more will destroy the unity in our country. When we repeatedly yearn for the pay after our services is the more we dig up unprofessional vocations in our country.

We have mostly seen graduates failing in their areas of interest because the philosophy they carried in the academic formation was money-oriented not service-oriented. We need to avail our different faculties to stop this rusting which will soon finish up our country.

The Author is; Sem. Robert Bigabwarugaba
robertbigabwarugaba@gmail.com
Katigondo National Seminary – Research Associate Eyrie Writers.