Uganda, March 3 -- There is no place like a tree shade for a sit-down with a lecturer at the Department of Music in Makerere University. Amid the constant buzz of student interactions and foot traffic across the lawn, Polycarp Kyagulanyi is routinely addressed as musomesa (Luganda for teacher) by passers-by. You would be wrong if you concluded that he earned this title from being a lecturer. The 34-year-old Kyagulanyi first got the label as early as Senior Four at St Noah Mawaggali Secondary School in Buikwe, Central Uganda. The school, under Mbikko Catholic Parish had a brass band.

"I like being a teacher and I think I am a very good teacher," says Kyagulanyi who has been lecturing just more than two and half years at Makerere's Departm...