First Lady lauds USAID funded reading project

EDUCATION |

The First Lady and Minister of Education and Sports, Mrs Janet Museveni, has appreciated the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for supporting improved reading skills of the early primary grade learners (Primary One to Primary Four), saying it is good and strategic.

She observed that the Early Grade Reading project to promote literacy, which is funded by USAID through the Uganda Literacy Achievement and Retention Activity (LARA) and the Uganda School Health and Reading Programme (SHRP), has made a great impact by enabling the children to learn in their mother tongue.

The project, she added, had enabled learners get a grip of the educational packages before they launch into foreign languages, which she said would otherwise make it difficult for them to understand the concepts.

"We value what you have done and it is our prayer that this programme can be stretched to cover the remaining 27 districts, so that many more children benefit," Mrs Museveni said while bidding farewell to the outgoing USAID director for education, Mary Catherine Leherr, at State House Nakasero last week.

According to a release from her office, the First Lady observed that the education ministry has been struggling to ensure that the remaining 27 districts are included in the budget in order to benefit from this programme, but it has not been easy owing to the COVID-19 pandemic and the current status in the country and the world.

The release also indicates that the USAID-funded Literacy Achievement and Retention Activity and the School Health and Reading programme have promoted improvement of the literacy rate from 20% to 28% in 122 districts in Uganda.

The achievements under this support include the procurement of textbooks (primers) for English and 12 local languages at a ratio of 1:1 and training of about 5,000 teachers of  Primary One to Primary in the early grade reading (EGR) methodology, hence improving the teaching and learning process.

Other key stakeholders, including the district education officers, district inspectors of schools, school management committees and CCTs were also trained and the EGR methodology incorporated in the  primary teacher education curriculum to ensure sustainability.

During the meeting at Nakasero, Leherr attributed the success of the Early Grade Reading project to the First Lady's political support.

She said it is not so easy to make people understand why the local language is so important in early grade learning and, therefore, the political support has made people confident and comfortable rallying them to embrace the programme.

Leherr also talked about other achievements by the education development partners and hoped that the new Education Sector Strategic Plan will contain improvement strategies to address the challenges still facing the education sector in the country.

She said USAID will continue to be Uganda's partner in addressing these challenges to ensure education for all.

Leherr was accompanied by Julie Grieir'Villtte from the USAID-Uganda office.

Impact

The release indicates that the USAID-funded Literacy Achievement and Retention Activity and the School Health and Reading programme have promoted improvement of the literacy rate from 20% to 28 % in 122 districts in Uganda.

The achievements of this support include the procurement of textbooks (primers) for English and 12 local languages to a ratio of 1:1 and training of about 5,000 teachers of P1-P4 in the early grade reading methodology hence improving the teaching and learning process. Other key stakeholders, including the district education officers, district inspectors of schools and school management committees were also trained.