What next after graduation; the heavily invested-in Journey by African Parents.

 29^th January 2024, Makerere University is in graduation week. I am happily writing this about the event—maybe because I am part of the 74^th graduation ceremony. I share stories with many who have been pushed by their hard-earned family support, it doesn’t stop from here though, expectations of reciprocating support must be met!

A total of 132 PhDs, 1,585 Masters, 156 Postgraduate Diplomas, 11,016 Undergraduate Degrees and 24 Undergraduate Diplomas will be graduating. The numbers are exciting in the country’s education effort journey as policy makers advocate for a more formal population in all markets for a proper functioning economy.

I am not a futurist—that I will dive into where and how the market will absorb all this newly trained labor. But at least I can run into the deeper background and picture—more so on what it takes to graduate a kid and what expectations parents/guardians sufficiently imagine like any other ‘’investment’’ they have heavily poured resources in.

Most of Ugandan parents get money from agriculture related economic activities. These activities cut across from services, as informal workers—working for pays from established farms/ranches, as producers and others as processors or in manufacturing linking the chain to an agrarian niche. A few others are public sector workers, totally unproductive and not involved in any economic chain and foreign workers abroad sending remittances back home.

Regardless the area, a good number of them have been able to fund their kids’ studies from nursery level to university. Others have pushed to where they have managed to, in tertiary institutions earning certificates and diplomas, including formal basic training under various fields. Many Ugandan parents have continued working in toxic environments; many have even lost their health trying to fund large sums of school payments.

 All these ‘’investments’’ consume time, resources, commitments, and hope. The path is not a tidy one. But what expectation does it carry after? How do you pay back? What is the interest rate? what are the costs of not paying back? And what true costs does it carry to a graduate? It is an African thing for parents to forego what they need the most to allow their kids a needed opportunity or resources that would put them in the right positions. In the pre-European interference era in Africa, what was paramount was to ensure that a child had the right skill as well as the right behavior.

For anyone a parent has sacrificed for, there is a level of expectation from them, and I do not think contemporariness should be reason enough to remove that responsibility. This goes down to immediate family like siblings who have followed the rough paths with one. The expectations are huge enough but also too far to be envisioned presently. Most realize later after working hard enough to sufficiently cover them. The Black tax swings all corners and is among the few reasons that make hard-working labor tied in a limbo. Parents expect back energy in meeting basically all their needs and costs—some but not all.

The concept of the black tax probably originated from South Africa; it was seen as the return’s black workers, in the past, sent to their families and relatives for upkeep. The apartheid South Africans were such that Africans and blacks were discriminated against and had only a few opportunities to contend with. But how much will you be earning to cover all they expect? Don’t you have needs too and goals to meet—of course, they expect this to comer later in thoughts since they ‘’suffered long enough’’.  The African social system is unarguably built on the premises and strength of family and responsibilities. Society is built on collective responsibilities that spread even to every member of the society at large as a unit.

Basically, to an African parent, a child is an investment and future insurance for old age and moments where one’s effort would not be enough to feed or meet necessary needs. The African family institutions are different from many other parts of the world. One would then ask whether the “wokeness” conceptions would justify taking such future expectations wrong.

Like the Brown Tax in the Latino communities, the Black Tax spread across Africa as a general description of family relations for every black. It is seen as an obligation, and the person who sends it must do something as a necessity. Those who are the beneficiaries sometimes develop a sense of belonging and claim over the income of the individual. At what point should one say that the black tax is bad, and to what extent would the African circumstances create the limit? Are African parents truly entitled to the success of their children? Often than not, an average African parent assigns a primary purpose of nurturing and sacrificing their lives for their children.

This mentality was carried on when the new order of definition of what success meant arose across Africa. Education and other resources must be attained, and the mothers would not mind selling their biggest clothes or properties to ensure that these voids were filled. The culture prevailed over time and is still predominant in the African society of today. Children in every African household became an ambition and duty that nothing would negotiate the commitments to them.

My point is not that one must give without control or that every ‘ask’ should never be met with a ‘no’; otherwise, one would never move to the point of self-actualization. However, the first condition to be put to black tax is the measure of sacrifice the potential beneficiary had made. This separates responsibility from mere philanthropy. It is a measure to keep one’s circle small and reduce unnecessary ‘billings.’ Young Ugandans who are growing must understand that what comes first is themselves, the means to secure their future, and after all personal or immediate needs have been covered, those that we owe come in, but it should never be at the expense of one’s development. One must know that the greatest responsibility owed is that that guarantees growth.

The above is also not to say that we should kill the African culture of giving. There are many individuals to be lifted out of poverty. Uganda today is positioning itself as a proper headquarters of poverty and as such, it cannot afford to stop all the help it could get. So, the black tax may not be an unnecessary social responsibility, but instead, some level of necessity and discharge of appreciation to those who have made tangible sacrifices in our lives.