On behalf of Uwezo Uganda, I take this opportunity to convey to Dr Rob Mark of CR&DALL our thanks and gratitude for honoring our invitation to participate virtually at the launch of the 2021 Uwezo Uganda National Learning Assessment report titled, Are our children learning? Illuminating the Covid-19 learning losses and gains in Uganda, on Tuesday, 18th January 2022. We were greatly honored by his presence, participation, commitment and passion. We reaffirm our commitment to ensure improved and equitable quality learning for all children in Uganda.
Below is the link to the full report and a YouTube recording to the launch event.
I met Lalage for the first time when I was a Masters student at Edinburgh c30 years ago. I was struck then by her wisdom, knowledge and passion. I met her at least once a year at various events and she was always an inspiration for how to be as an academic. One particular memory is beng at a conference in Edinburgh marking Kenneth King's career. I had the pleasure to be amongst the last to leave the Southside Bar that night along with Lalage. Like some others here, I met her last in Nottingham just before lockdown. I had a young Ugandan researcher with me (one of George Openjuru's team) and Lalage amazed him with her knowledge of Ugandan society and adult education. I would have been delighted to have been in touch with her just now to tell her that I had joined Glasgow and CRADALL - and I would have loved to hear her account of where Glasgow adult education has come from and where it is going.
I joined Glasgow University’s DACE in 1991, at the start of Lalage’s last year as Head. I was appointed primarily to extend the Access programme to science and engineering subjects; also to develop and deliver courses in Astronomy and other sciences in what had become, under Lalage’s leadership, the broadest programme of continuing education among the UK universities. I had worked previously as a researcher in Physics and Astronomy and this was quite a culture change for me – probably much more than I realised at the time. I appreciated her kind concern for new members of staff, for our induction and development, and I was struck by her great enthusiasm for and interest in all the very varied sorts of work that came under the DACE roof.
I’m also struck now, thinking back, by comments she made that have stayed with me, single sentences even that went to the heart of the matter being discussed in a particularly penetrating way. From comments like these I gained a strong sense of the value of adult education, particularly mature student Access. Meeting her in subsequent years you found this acuity undimmed, even into her 90s.
I’ll always be grateful to Lalage for my admission to the world of adult education. I’m sorry she’s left us but her memory will be a lasting inspiration.
Lalage was one of the warmest and most generous people I have met, and possessed a formidable mind and astuteness about people which I will never forget. She always seemed lit from within to me. I met Lalage in her role as a patron of the Centenary Commission for Adult Education, for which I was a commissioner, which I know John Holford has written about. But I had the great honour in July 2019, at the end of the last face to face SCUTREA conference, of interviewing her, very informally, while she waited in my office for a taxi to take her back to the station. I have the recording and the transcript of the interview. It was a remarkable moment as, as it was so informal and off the cuff, Lalage talked about her time at Oxford and her memories of being there with Tony Benn, Shirley Williams and Margaret Thatcher, who she was quite unimpressed by. She was very funny and almost mischievous. She was also wonderful on learning to be an adult educator just after the war and the importance of the United Nations. I had the very highest regard for Lalage and, without wishing to be clichéd, she was a genuine inspiration to me and a touchstone for adult education as a pedagogy.
What I love about African culture is the knowledge that people do not disappear when they die. They enter into the larger kingdom of ancestors with whom we may continue to communicate, seeking advice and just sharing stories. Lalage as a daughter of Africa remains with us even now sitting in a conversational circle with Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Thomas Hodgkin, Nita Barrow and others.
I first learned about Lalage in 1970 when I was a Doctoral student of African educational systems looking for a place to do my PhD research. She was the Director of Extra-mural Studies at the University of Zambia at the time and through the mail offered me a position there to do my work. In the end, I was offered a position at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania at the Institute of Adult Education. I met Lalage in person in 1971 in Dar es Salaam as we hosted the meeting of the African Association for Adult Education. Lalage was the Secretary of the AAEA while I was the local organizer on behalf of the Institute of Adult Education. This was the first international conference that I had ever helped to organize. Lalage flew into Dar es Salaam 4-5 days before the conference. She set up with a typewriter at the University and took my disorganized and messy conference notes and turned them into a very professional looking programme. She had a remarkable talent for taking fragments of ideas, diverse activities and seemingly divergent perspectives and weaving them into an articulate, coherent and professional paper or policy or report. She was an institution builder. Her greatest gift in my opinion lay in her ability to gain support at the highest levels of government or academia for the field of adult education. She was a consummate professional. She took the task of academic leadership to the highest level. She was a passionate advocate for the power of adult education. She had remarkable confidence in bringing the need for adult education to Vice-Chancellors, to Ministers of Education and to heads of state. She often spoke of the responsibility to ‘educate the politicians, an activity that she undertook with enthusiasm.
I recall at the 1971 meeting that several of the younger generation of African adult educators just getting started in university life thought that by 1971, it might be time for an African to hold the position of Secretary of the AAAE. There was a feeling that there had not been very much reported over the year or two proceeding the gathering in Dar es Salaam. Surely time for a transition? There was some anticipation by the younger folks that the conference upon hearing the report from the Secretary might feel it was time for a change. When the Chair called upon Lalage to deliver her report, the room was filled with an astounding record of activities, accomplishments, challenges and plans. She had delivered a five-star report. When the vote came for Secretary, she was voted in unanimously! She may have white skin, but she was an African and a brilliantly accomplished one at that.
After 1980 when she returned for good to the UK and took up her position at Glasgow, I had less contact with her. She was an active player in the building of the International Council for Adult Education where I was working after leaving Tanzania. She edited the journal Convergence for us following in the footsteps of Edward Hutchinson.
During the past 15 years my partner Darlene Clover and I were fortunate to have been able to visit with Lalage on numerous occasions at her home in Shrewsbury. We stayed in a guest room which a collection of perhaps 500 books on the shelf above the bed. We could have stayed there forever! Shrewsbury was the place where she had been raised after her father returned from his days with the Indian Army in Burma. He had been awarded an estate with a manor house and a farm just outside the town itself. Lalage shared her encyclopedic knowledge of the area with us each time we visited. She was a woman of the land. She was as engaged in Shrewsbury and its organizations in her late 80s and early 90s as she had been in the many African communities where she had worked.
The Ancestral Kingdom will be energized, stimulated and entertained by this newer addition. And the rest of us will continue to call on Lalage for stories and advice.
On behalf of Uwezo Uganda, I take this opportunity to convey to Dr Rob Mark of CR&DALL our thanks and gratitude for honoring our invitation to participate virtually at the launch of the 2021 Uwezo Uganda National Learning Assessment report titled, Are our children learning? Illuminating the Covid-19 learning losses and gains in Uganda, on Tuesday, 18th January 2022. We were greatly honored by his presence, participation, commitment and passion. We reaffirm our commitment to ensure improved and equitable quality learning for all children in Uganda.
Below is the link to the full report and a YouTube recording to the launch event.
· Full report: https://uwezouganda.org/uwezo-report-final-version/
· Launch event: https://youtu.be/M3_sriXMo0M
Thanks so much for helping to circulate them with your colleagues and contacts. Dr Mark's participation at the launch was highly appreciated.
Mary Goretti Nakabugo, PhD | Executive Director
Uwezo Uganda
Corner House, Suite B1
Plot 436/437, Mawanda Road
Kamwokya, Kampala
P.O Box 33275, Kampala, Uganda
Website: https://uwezouganda.org/
E-mail: gnakabugo@uwezouganda.org
gnakabugo@yahoo.co.uk
Twitter: @MNakabug
I met Lalage for the first time when I was a Masters student at Edinburgh c30 years ago. I was struck then by her wisdom, knowledge and passion. I met her at least once a year at various events and she was always an inspiration for how to be as an academic. One particular memory is beng at a conference in Edinburgh marking Kenneth King's career. I had the pleasure to be amongst the last to leave the Southside Bar that night along with Lalage. Like some others here, I met her last in Nottingham just before lockdown. I had a young Ugandan researcher with me (one of George Openjuru's team) and Lalage amazed him with her knowledge of Ugandan society and adult education. I would have been delighted to have been in touch with her just now to tell her that I had joined Glasgow and CRADALL - and I would have loved to hear her account of where Glasgow adult education has come from and where it is going.
I joined Glasgow University’s DACE in 1991, at the start of Lalage’s last year as Head. I was appointed primarily to extend the Access programme to science and engineering subjects; also to develop and deliver courses in Astronomy and other sciences in what had become, under Lalage’s leadership, the broadest programme of continuing education among the UK universities. I had worked previously as a researcher in Physics and Astronomy and this was quite a culture change for me – probably much more than I realised at the time. I appreciated her kind concern for new members of staff, for our induction and development, and I was struck by her great enthusiasm for and interest in all the very varied sorts of work that came under the DACE roof.
I’m also struck now, thinking back, by comments she made that have stayed with me, single sentences even that went to the heart of the matter being discussed in a particularly penetrating way. From comments like these I gained a strong sense of the value of adult education, particularly mature student Access. Meeting her in subsequent years you found this acuity undimmed, even into her 90s.
I’ll always be grateful to Lalage for my admission to the world of adult education. I’m sorry she’s left us but her memory will be a lasting inspiration.
Lalage was one of the warmest and most generous people I have met, and possessed a formidable mind and astuteness about people which I will never forget. She always seemed lit from within to me. I met Lalage in her role as a patron of the Centenary Commission for Adult Education, for which I was a commissioner, which I know John Holford has written about. But I had the great honour in July 2019, at the end of the last face to face SCUTREA conference, of interviewing her, very informally, while she waited in my office for a taxi to take her back to the station. I have the recording and the transcript of the interview. It was a remarkable moment as, as it was so informal and off the cuff, Lalage talked about her time at Oxford and her memories of being there with Tony Benn, Shirley Williams and Margaret Thatcher, who she was quite unimpressed by. She was very funny and almost mischievous. She was also wonderful on learning to be an adult educator just after the war and the importance of the United Nations. I had the very highest regard for Lalage and, without wishing to be clichéd, she was a genuine inspiration to me and a touchstone for adult education as a pedagogy.
What I love about African culture is the knowledge that people do not disappear when they die. They enter into the larger kingdom of ancestors with whom we may continue to communicate, seeking advice and just sharing stories. Lalage as a daughter of Africa remains with us even now sitting in a conversational circle with Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Thomas Hodgkin, Nita Barrow and others.
I first learned about Lalage in 1970 when I was a Doctoral student of African educational systems looking for a place to do my PhD research. She was the Director of Extra-mural Studies at the University of Zambia at the time and through the mail offered me a position there to do my work. In the end, I was offered a position at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania at the Institute of Adult Education. I met Lalage in person in 1971 in Dar es Salaam as we hosted the meeting of the African Association for Adult Education. Lalage was the Secretary of the AAEA while I was the local organizer on behalf of the Institute of Adult Education. This was the first international conference that I had ever helped to organize. Lalage flew into Dar es Salaam 4-5 days before the conference. She set up with a typewriter at the University and took my disorganized and messy conference notes and turned them into a very professional looking programme. She had a remarkable talent for taking fragments of ideas, diverse activities and seemingly divergent perspectives and weaving them into an articulate, coherent and professional paper or policy or report. She was an institution builder. Her greatest gift in my opinion lay in her ability to gain support at the highest levels of government or academia for the field of adult education. She was a consummate professional. She took the task of academic leadership to the highest level. She was a passionate advocate for the power of adult education. She had remarkable confidence in bringing the need for adult education to Vice-Chancellors, to Ministers of Education and to heads of state. She often spoke of the responsibility to ‘educate the politicians, an activity that she undertook with enthusiasm.
I recall at the 1971 meeting that several of the younger generation of African adult educators just getting started in university life thought that by 1971, it might be time for an African to hold the position of Secretary of the AAAE. There was a feeling that there had not been very much reported over the year or two proceeding the gathering in Dar es Salaam. Surely time for a transition? There was some anticipation by the younger folks that the conference upon hearing the report from the Secretary might feel it was time for a change. When the Chair called upon Lalage to deliver her report, the room was filled with an astounding record of activities, accomplishments, challenges and plans. She had delivered a five-star report. When the vote came for Secretary, she was voted in unanimously! She may have white skin, but she was an African and a brilliantly accomplished one at that.
After 1980 when she returned for good to the UK and took up her position at Glasgow, I had less contact with her. She was an active player in the building of the International Council for Adult Education where I was working after leaving Tanzania. She edited the journal Convergence for us following in the footsteps of Edward Hutchinson.
During the past 15 years my partner Darlene Clover and I were fortunate to have been able to visit with Lalage on numerous occasions at her home in Shrewsbury. We stayed in a guest room which a collection of perhaps 500 books on the shelf above the bed. We could have stayed there forever! Shrewsbury was the place where she had been raised after her father returned from his days with the Indian Army in Burma. He had been awarded an estate with a manor house and a farm just outside the town itself. Lalage shared her encyclopedic knowledge of the area with us each time we visited. She was a woman of the land. She was as engaged in Shrewsbury and its organizations in her late 80s and early 90s as she had been in the many African communities where she had worked.
The Ancestral Kingdom will be energized, stimulated and entertained by this newer addition. And the rest of us will continue to call on Lalage for stories and advice.
Lalage Bown Oyay Oyay Oyay
Budd Hall, Victoria, January 11, 2022