WHO SHOULD SAVE UGANDA FROM UNETHICAL ADVERTISEMENTS?
For a couple of years now, I have seen a number of unethical advertisements pinned alongside roads, notice boards of various universities, print and electronic media. Visit any university in Kampala and see people advertising themselves that they offer services in doing course works, dissertations, assignments and research proposals. Any one who went through university education will agree with me that students learn by doing assignments, course works through research. Unfortunately, students look for people to do academic work for them. In some universities, a course work contributes 40% to the final semester examination.
If students score 35% in a course work they have bought, it means they will need to score 15% in the final exam to attain 50% pass mark. At the end of the course, students will obtain grades for which they contributed only 15%. This does not only contribute to the academic suicide, but also brings incompetent and unprofessional jobseekers on the labour market who lack research skills. No country has developed economically, politically and socially without doing research. For university authorities to tolerate such adverts in the premises of universities, means they either condone the practice or some insiders especially lecturers- who would be the first complainants, participate in doing course works for students to make a living.
There are also adverts on Kampala streets about jobs available in Dubai, South Africa, London and USA. The owners of these adverts indicate their telephone contacts but no physical address or the name of organization is available. A telephone contact can not be subsititute for physical address. In any case, the two are complementary. One would expect that any individual or organization charged with connecting Ugandan jobseekers and the employers abroad is registered and recognized by government, and utilises the relevant ministry under proper channels. Otherwise in future, the country risks facing problems of human trafficking, slavery and sexual exploitation perpetuated by unethical recruiters. Many Ugandan jobseekers invest a lot of money in education; money which is earned through sweat and blood. Completing studies and you are subjected to exploitation defeats logic, but also discourages majority poor parents in educating their children.
I have also seen adverts in Kampala calling people with short manhood and rough womanhood to go for elongation and smoothening of their manhood and womanhood respectively. This has indeed caused some embarrassment to parents. A friend of mine was recently dropping his children to school and his nine year old son asked him what manhood meant and how it could be elongated. Whereas he managed to describe manhood, he felt embarrassed in explaining the rationale for elongating manhood. After dropping the children, he shed tears in his car as the children were entering the school gate. He was lucky that his son did not ask him about smoothening womanhood! Perhaps many parents have similar stories to tell. The fact that the owners of these adverts do not reveal where they operate from except when called on phone, is a manifestation of their lack of licence to offer such services. The consumers of such services are put to risk since they deal with companies that can not sue or be sued. It also makes it hard to trace providers of such services in the event of complaints about them.
Adverts of pastors on radio stations calling people to pay before they submit prayers are common. Why would someone pay inorder to ask a pastor intercede for him to God? Perhaps these pastors are not registered and therefore not recognized by the Association of pastors in the country. But failure to condemn these unethical and ungodly adverts makes people think the salvation is being commercialized! The same applies to many herbalists who claim in their adverts to cure all diseases on planet earth. The earlier these unethical adverts are discouraged the better for Uganda.
Everest Turyahikayo
Human Resource Consultant
Kampala
