What if we Prioritized Professionalism as a Prerequisite in every Workspace?
Indeed, every disadvantage comes with an advantage. The lawlessness in Uganda has converged so many beneficiaries who are silently “milking cows they don’t feed.”
Watching unprofessional people comfortably occupying professional seats and dockets justifies the Ugandan technical know-who instead of technical know-how. It’s disheartening to hear people trying to persuade audiences to believe that there are professions that are very shareable! Really? Academicians, scholars, and those who took their time to draft different courses and their curriculum were too wise to categorically, specifically and particularly give them names and their respective predictable outcomes. For example, teachers, doctors, nurses, journalists, among other professionals have their specific roles and responsibilities that match with their academic training and qualifications.
The Ugandan mismatch of unprofessionals occupying professional seats and dockets justifies the incredible rate of unemployment that has left many hunting for greener pastures. Recently, the Daily Monitor known for its catchy headlines bolded the breaking news saying “No degree, no teaching. Wow! How I wish, every docket would embrace this dictatorial method of operation by demarcating specific academic qualifications for specific job titles.
Maybe, that would create a sieving mode to save us from seeing teachers pretendingly working as journalists, journalists pretendingly working as pharmacists, business men pretendingly working as doctors and nurses plus businessmen pretendingly working as religious leaders and so many other professionals exchanging titles just for mere survival that lacks motivation and professional training. Seeing people plant a narrative that one needs to only sit and talk on a radio microphone to become a journalist hurts those who dedicated their tuition and time to do Journalistic professional training.
Seeing persuaders do their work to show how everyone can stand in front of a class just to disseminate written notes to students as a way of becoming a teacher dishearten those who dedicated their tuition to go and grab their well-deserved degrees.
It’s high time we wake up in arms to fight in concert under our professional umbrellas. Interestingly there are dockets that have indeed been ring-fenced for their professionals for example, never have I ever seen an “unprofessional” standing to act as a lawyer in courts of law or even an “unprofessional” standing to act as a surgeon to do surgery on a patient. Should we think that shows how other courses and professions are too easy to be duplicated? No! It’s with the law, as it stipulates that a Ugandan legislator only needs a UACE certificate, but a Ugandan radio journalist just needs his tongue to go and speak on the radio microphone.
Like the Ugandan government salary scales, let every professional docket have their scales that vividly describe jobs and their specific wanted qualifications and maybe that would reduce and eventually stop this infiltration of unprofessionals duplicatingly occupying seats they didn’t train nor qualify for.
AGABA GORDON
gordonagaba08@gmail.com
The writer is a journalist and a public relations professional.
