On January 5 the Ugandan government announced that Kiswahili will be made a compulsory subject in both primary and secondary schools in the country.
Uganda now becomes the fourth country in East Africa to make the decision. Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania already have Kiswahili as an official language.
Kiswahili remains the most spoken language in East and central Africa with approximately 200 million speakers.
The African Union (AU) and Southern African Development Community (SADC) have also adopted Swahili as an official language.
The move to introduce Kiswahili in Ugandan schools is in accordance to directive of the 21st East African Community (EAC) Summit held in February 2021 that Kiswahili is made an official language in the region.
The Uganda National Kiswahili Council in 2019 also pushed for the introduction of Kiswahili as the second national and official language in the nation.
With this move by the Ugandan government, we are likely to see other East African countries like Congo and Burundi to follow suite and make Kiswahili compulsory in their countries too as a means of realizing a common language among the east African Community countries.
