Ugandan students should take note of American school shootings

It has happened again. The tragic shooting at Northern Illinois University is yet another instance of gun violence on an American university campus and the second this month alone. On February 8th a nursing student at Louisiana Technical College shot two students before turning the gun on herself, and in April last year 33 people were killed by a student at Virginia Tech University. It will be a few days before we know where this latest shooting fits in the spectrum of American tragedies but it is safe to assume that it will reignite America's debate on gun control, which has surprisingly not come up very often in the on-going presidential primaries.

It is a debate that Ugandans need to pay attention to. For over a decade, many middle class and upper class Ugandans have been sending their children abroad for their university education. It is a reaction to the deteriorated standards at Makerere University, once the pride of Uganda's education system. Some have gone to South Africa, some to India, a majority to the UK but a good many have chosen to attend universities and colleges in the U.S.

The specific numbers are not readily available but an estimate in the thousands seems within the realm of reason. According to an article this January in The Weekly Observer, over 4,000 Ugandans were granted American visas in 2006. 26 percent of those visas were immigrant and student visas. The recent shooting on American university campuses raise legitimate concerns about the safety in those institutions, and are a good reason to question whether Uganda's students should be going elsewhere for the education they cannot get at home.

It is not a debate that is likely to happen. There are several more immediate concerns in Kampala. Kenya's crisis and the debate over land reforms have dominated the news headlines of late. The recent arrest of an outspoken opposition MP and the resumption of the ever-difficult negotiations with the LRA will feature prominently over the coming days.

Still if there cannot be a debate about this, it would be good manners and good politics for Uganda's embassy in Washington to acknowledge the tragedies as well as the increasing threat to Ugandans on American campuses, and to offer some advice to prospective students as to which states have lower incidences of gun crimes. That way when Ugandans go looking for a university abroad, they have some guidance as to where they are less likely to wind up a statistic.