World Vision: Uganda Support to Quality Education

Introduction

World vision is a Christian relief, development and advocacy organization dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice. We serve all people regardless of their religion, race, ethnicity or gender. Our education intervention in Uganda now targets close to 40 Districts in fiive regions (Western, Northern, Eastern, southern and Central region) reaching out to 53 communities in our Area Development Programs. In the last three years alone; our intervention outreach benefited over 3 million children, with more registered children benefiting directly from our education intervention.

World Vision Uganda’s education programming is mainly centered on basic education which includes both formal and non-formal systems aimed at improving access to and the quality of education for both boys and girls. We believe that education should lead to development of the whole child. Children should be able to achieve functional levels of literacy, numeracy and essential life skills, access and complete primary cycle of education with the goal that children are educated for life. Apart from support to basic education, scores of WVU education interventions in the past three years also included support to secondary, vocational skills training, adult basic education and tertiary education.

Interventions aimed at improving access to education

In the financial years 2007-2010, WVU made tremendous progress in improving children’s access to education. A total of 560 classrooms, 106 teachers houses, 12,431 twin desks sitting 37300 children and 1052 stances of VIP latrines were built in our Area Development Programs and conflict affected areas contributing greatly to government efforts in improving access to education and significantly reducing the distances that children have to walk to school; this investment translates to over USH 9 billion on classrooms alone. More than 37,300 children have directly benefited from improved, safe and attractive environment and reduced pupil classroom ratios.

We ensure that girls are given particular attention in order for more girls to access and remain in schools; our Latrine construction targets separate stances for girls and boys with wash rooms for girls. The burden on the existing and dilapidated latrines is highly reduced. This has contributed to improved children’s health and safety, since old, frequently used latrines can easily collapse.

To improve retention in school for disadvantage children, WVU supported children in conflict affected and hard to reach areas with school uniforms and exercise books to ensure that orphans and other vulnerable children do not miss out on education. Over 400,000 exercise books and 16,000 uniforms were supplied to this category of children. In addition, we also provide water tanks to schools to ensure that children have access to clean and safe drinking water.

The Food for Education under our emergency education program supported school feeding for over 250 schools and learning centers in Pader in Northern Uganda and Karamoja region.

Improving quality of education

With the introduction of UPE in 1997, the issue of quality basic education has been one of the greatest national concerns. WVU as one of the key actors in education works with the school, communities, local government and other NGOs to foster learning and sharing that would lead to development of programs aimed at improving the quality of education in the country and our target ADPs in particular.

In the last three years our intervention focused on programs that increased teacher pupil contact hours, lowered the pupil text book ratios and increased circulation of writing materials in the hands of disadvantaged children who could otherwise not accessed school due to lack of writing materials. The construction of teacher’s houses reduces distance teachers walk to school and improves timely reporting with positive impact in syllabus coverage, the teacher pupil contact hours also improves greatly, World Vision constructed a number of teachers houses, supplied teachers tables and chairs to aid lesson planning and scheming in a conducive environment.

One of the key quality indicators that we look at is pupil desk ratios; we support schools with classroom desks to ensure that children have adequate seating facilities to reduce pupil desk ratios, this also help children especially in lower classes to start developing writing skills at early age. In the last three years WVU supplied a total of 12,295 school desks benefiting up to 37,000 pupils across the country, this has not only improved seating space for children but bridged the funding gap in government effort to providing schooling facilities.

Other interventions

Besides support to basic education, functional adult literacy programmes, vocational skills training and support to tertiary education formed part of our interventions in last strategy period. Over 1000 youth and former child soldiers benefited from a range of vocational skills training such as carpentry and joinery, tailoring, brick laying and concrete practice, bicycle repairs, computer and hair dressing among others. This has provided alternative livelihoods options for the youth and sustainable resettlement of IDPs. In addition, the functional adult literacy program equipped about 3000 adults with literacy and numeracy skills relevant to their participation in individual and community development. WV believes that this intervention builds capacity of communities and parents to support learning

The strategic focus in the next three years

The WVU 3-year education strategy (2010-2012) addresses three main objectives;

1) strengthening the capacities of households and communities to provide for children to complete primary school education,

2) Strengthening communities and local institutions capacities to improve and demand for quality education and

3) Improving access for boys and girls to primary education, with the overall goal of increasing the proportion of boys and girls completing primary education by 20% within the strategy period.

The next strategic focus will be on learning outcomes. There is a growing concern that the investment in infrastructure has not translated into a commensurate improvement in the education quality and this calls for paying more attention to the school and classroom activities that impact directly on the learning outcomes.

The education programming will promote the organization’s four child well-being outcomes, especially the outcome on Education for Life for all children. This means that World Vision strives to see that:

• Children access and complete quality primary education

• Children read, write, and use numeracy skills

• Children make good judgments, protect themselves, manage emotions, and communicate ideas

• Adolescents are ready for economic activities

To achieve the above, our strategic focus will make a significant emphasis on quality aspect of primary education, working on issues around retention and completion and improvement in learning outcomes for children in partnerships with local communities, Ministry of Education and Sports, District education offices, CBOs, NGOs and other INGOs interested in improving the quality of education, with targeted research and advocacy for policy influencing.

Strengthening the capacity of school management committees and PTA to increase involvement and participation in education is key to our work. It’s important to recognize the fact that education incorporates the building of community learning and awareness, to help parents and other adults take charge of their future development and program sustainability.

More attention is given on programs that promote reading culture of children, creative initiative such as the news papers in education (NiE), capacity enhancement of teachers on methodologies; life skills and instructional material support are important quality aspect.

WV believes that the government bears the primary responsibility for ensuring that all children access and complete a quality basic education, but government is sometimes constrained to meet all expectations. Therefore, World Vision works in partnership with the MoES and other donors to ensure increased support to quality education, and to advocate for government to take an increased level of responsibility in the provision of basic education of good quality.

As WV strives to contribute to the provision of equitable access to quality education there are concerns to which greater government attention is required.

• Allocation, utilization and effective management of education budget resources

• Access and completion of primary education for disadvantaged and vulnerable children

• Teacher absenteeism and general lack of motivation

• Implementation of the Education Act 2008

• School monitoring and supervision

• Sanitation conditions in schools and the girl child education

We believe that children should be educated for life in order to enjoy life in its fullness and this can be achieved if the key duty bearers and all partners work together to address the current challenges of education access, retention and quality. Community empowerment and involvement of children will go a long way to develop effective schools that can provide quality education.