FALSE: Teaching of Luganda has not been banned in Ugandan public schools
A Facebook post claiming that the government of Uganda has banned the teaching of Luganda in public schools and is set to be replace it with Kiswahili is FALSE.
According to the post, Kiswahili will become compulsory across Uganda, and this announcement was allegedly made by government spokesperson Ofwono Opondo.
However, Mr Opondo, who is also the Executive Director of the Uganda Media Centre, refuted these claims in a tweet on his official handle.
The Facebook post contains a number of errors, such as the claim that Ofwono Opondo is the NRM spokesperson, but the party’s spokesperson is Henry Mulindwa.
In 2011, the government of Uganda issued a directive that Kiswahili should be taught in schools in compliance with Article137 (2) of the East African Community treaty which states that Kiswahili shall be developed as a lingua franca of the community to enhance regional integration.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake news or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by PesaCheck Researcher Pius Enywaru, was edited by PesaCheck Deputy Editor Ann Ngengere and was approved for publication by PesaCheck Managing Editor Eric Mugendi.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.
PesaCheck is a joint initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with additional funding support from the International Budget Partnership (Kenya) and Twaweza, in partnership with a coalition of local media organisations, and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ).