School Priorities - SNV

School Priorities 

WASH 

School Lunch 

Parent 

Participation

Foreword................................................................................................................................4 

Preface....................................................................................................................................5 

Quality Education............................................................. 6 

School is Fun.........................................................................................................................8 

Supportive Inspections..................................................................................................... 12 

Video Documentation...................................................................................................... 16 

Fair Pen............................................................................................................................... 19 

Let the Children’s Voices Be Heard................................................................................ 21 

Community Participation............................................... 24 

Children First..................................................................................................................... 26 

Junior Achievement.......................................................................................................... 30 

District Education Ordinances....................................................................................... 33 

School Lunches.................................................................................................................. 36 

Community Leads the Way............................................................................................. 39 

Information Management............................................... 42 

Local Databases................................................................................................................. 44 

CU@School....................................................................................................................... 48 

School Performance Reviews.......................................................................................... 52 

3

The Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) has worked in partnership with SNV Netherlands 

Development Organisation in 16 districts spread over four geographical regions: West Nile, 

Rwenzori, Central and Northeastern. The partnership has focused on three key issue areas, 

namely access and retention, quality, and management/leadership. 

It is my pleasure to present this publication of case studies, giving a voice to the collaboration 

between government and non-government actors and SNV at different levels of the education 

system. 

The SNV approach of developing capacities and knowledge through partnership and jointly 

supporting the implementation of stronger, cost-effective and innovative programmes, has been 

highly appreciated by the MoES. 

The support to district local governments to coordinate and actively involve relevant actors and 

stakeholders and to collect and use Decentralised Education Management Information System 

(DEMIS) at district and school level for improved planning, budgeting and monitoring has been 

greatly appreciated. Programmes to showcase what child-friendly learning environments may 

look like by, for instance, involving communities in decision making processes, promoting and 

supporting sports and games in school, developing public-private partnerships, and enabling a 

teaching-learning environment where children are actively involved in their own learning, have 

helped to improve the professional skills of headteachers through classroom video analysis and 

peer-to-peer support for further learning. 

This publication provides insight into some of the SNV partnership projects and programmes. 

The documentation of these projects makes interesting reading and will hopefully act as a source 

of inspiration and learning for others—government and non-government actors—to improve 

primary education and ultimately the quality of learning outcomes of all children in Uganda. 

We hope through this documentation you will identify apt cases to replicate into programmes, see 

the relevance and importance of capacity development services in the education sector, and use 

the knowledge and lessons learnt to improve on the delivery of services in the education sector in 

Uganda and beyond. 

Dr. Daniel Nkaada 

Commissioner of Basic Education 

Ministry of Education and Sports 

4

It is my pleasure to present to you this publication, Stories from Our Practice. This document gives the 

highlights of our work in sharing expertise with Ugandan partners in the education sector from 2007 

to 2011. This work focused on the following three key areas: 

(1) Quality of education. This area includes supporting alternative teaching and learning processes, 

giving learners a voice, reducing exclusion on the basis of gender or other aspects, and ensuring 

the safety of all children in and around the school. 

(2) Equity in access and retention. This area includes promoting community participation, bringing 

disadvantaged and excluded learners into the classroom, and improving school management and 

the physical and psychological school environment. 

(3) Governance and leadership. This area includes improving information collection and analysis, 

using data to enhance efficiency, and increasing accountability and equity of service delivery. 

In line with the recent change in the Netherlands development policy, SNV Netherlands Development 

Organisation is reorienting its support to the primary education sector in 2011. To facilitate a smooth 

transition, the SNV education teams in West Nile, Rwenzori, Northeast and Central Uganda have 

developed an exit strategy together with our partners: district local governments and education 

officials, primary teaching colleges, universities, NGOs and civil society networks. 

This strategy prioritises and consolidates existing commitments, but also includes additional 

specialised, needs-based trainings to increase the possibilities of continuing capacity building 

and quality improvement in education beyond the SNV partnership. For reasons of sustainability, 

interventions and partners were linked to other education actors and programmes as much as possible. 

SNV will continue to work in the primary education sector through school gardens, which are used 

as good agricultural practice demonstration sites, and through water, sanitation and hygiene activities 

in schools. These activities will take place in partnership with many Ugandan partners, as well as the 

Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and UNICEF. As in all SNV activities, we will work in 

teams with a diverse mix of professionals with varied expertise and different cultural and professional 

backgrounds. Our advisors combine their thematic knowledge with skills in process facilitation, 

organisational development and institutional strengthening. 

I am pleased to see how our partnerships are reflected in this publication of experiences, innovations, 

good practices and lessons learned in the education sector in Uganda. With this legacy to be left 

behind I would like to thank and acknowledge our team of education advisors as well as our education 

sector partners at the school, district and national levels. 

It is my sincere hope that these experiences will serve as a source of learning and inspiration for others. 

Jeanette de Regt 

Country Director 

SNV Uganda 

For more information, contact 

uganda@snvworld.org 

www.snvworld.org 

+256 414 563 200 

5

Quality Education 

SNV encourages teachers to make 

lessons participatory so that learning 

is fun. 

There is no universally agreed upon 

definition of “quality education”. It 

is often measured with quantitative 

indicators such as attendance or time spent 

in school. Yet because quality education 

necessarily places the learner at the centre of 

the education process, without qualitative 

indicators for classroom observation we 

cannot address issues related to learning 

equality. A number of factors contribute 

to a quality education for primary school 

students, including: 

• the government’s capacity to develop 

and implement policy 

• the ability of schools and parents to 

provide an enabling environment for 

learning 

• the relevance of the curriculum 

• teachers’ ability to use a standard 

pedagogy 

6


• the competency and accountability of 

school leadership 

• the strength of community engagement 

Each of these factors contributes to better 

educational outcomes to some degree, but 

they work best when they are combined 

and placed into the local context, which 

requires dialogue amongst policymakers and 

practitioners. 

The Government of Uganda is committed to 

improving primary education by enhancing 

school infrastructure and increasing 

supplies. Of course, children learn better 

when they have textbooks, when their 

schools are not in disrepair, when they have 

school libraries, and when their teachers 

have adequate resources. But it is also clear 

that it is easier to distribute resources than 

to properly train teachers; ultimately, good 

teachers effect students’ learning more 

than textbooks and other materials. That 

means that the government must look 

more critically to the content of education 

and how that content is delivered. The 

government’s goal is “Education for All”, 

but there are still great challenges to its 

implementation. 

The greatest challenges are related to 

transforming the way in which children 

are taught and assessed. The Ugandan 

education system relies on traditional 

teacher-centred classrooms and curricula 

that are overloaded with content. These 

curricula force teachers to teach to the 

test as learners memorise facts in order 

to pass exams. The opposite approach 

is child-centred learning. It uses more 

interactive teaching and learning approaches 

to develop students’ problem solving 

and critical thinking skills. Research has 

shown that child-centred learning leads to 

a more sustainable and higher quality of 

learning. Unfortunately, many teachers and 

administrators see it as too difficult and 

time-consuming. 

To improve educational quality, the central 

focus must be on the processes of teaching 

and learning that give rise to desired 

cognitive and behavioural outcomes. First, 

pedagogical processes in the classroom must 

change. Teachers are not just responsible 

for teaching a curriculum—they must 

teach children. High repetition rates and 

poor learning achievements are closely 

linked to what and how teachers teach. 

Second, within the learning environment 

children must be able to fully express their 

views, thoughts and ideas—both inside 

and outside the classroom. Giving children 

a voice in the education system raises 

standards, improves behaviour and increases 

inclusion, while acknowledging that social 

and emotional learning is as important as 

academic learning. 

Therefore, for SNV, quality education refers 

to an education that is: 

1. Relevant to students’ context and needs. 

2. Efficient in collecting data, setting 

standards, meeting those standards and 

improving them. 

3. Inclusive of all children, irrespective of 

gender, ability or wealth. 

The following stories in this section show 

SNV’s experiences in helping schools 

improve the quality of their education. 

In the article School is Fun, Kamwenge 

schools revitalised their physical education 

programmes to keep children happy and 

active inside and outside the classroom. 

Supportive Inspections shows how Mpigi 

District used school inspections not 

to punish teachers but to link them 

to the support they needed. In Video 

Documentation, Bukedea teachers reviewed 

their performances in the classroom and 

planned out ways to improve their methods. 

In Fair Pen students from Kumi District 

produced a regular newsletter on issues 

important to them. Lastly, Let the Children’s 

Voices Be Heard documents Arua District’s 

experience coordinating youth-hosted radio 

programmes. 

The articles demonstrate the range of 

SNV interventions throughout Uganda. 

We hope that others see opportunities for 

implementing them in more districts. 

7


The children of Kamwenge District had a problem: They hated going to school. Once 

they got there, they spent their whole day in their seats memorising facts and studying for 

exams. School just wasn’t fun. 

Nothing was pulling children to school, but no one was pushing them to go either. Parents 

gave their children too many responsibilities at home, discouraging them from making 

school a priority. 

As they became disenchanted with school, the Kamwenge children were in danger of 

making bad decisions because the more time children spend out of 

X+3=5 

school, the more likely they are to begin having unprotected sex, 

find x 

drinking alcohol and taking other risks. 

Students in Kamwenge District were not 

having fun at school, so it was hard for them 

to learn. 

The Kamwenge District Local Government (DLG) had the 

solution—they just didn’t know what that solution was yet. So, 

SNV sat down with the district leaders to see how they could make 

education more attractive to children. The answer was surprising: 

They needed less of it. Children were spending so much time 

studying academic subjects that they had no time to play. By giving 

pupils more time to play sports and games, their brains could get a 

rest so that when they came back into the classroom, they would be 

energised and ready to learn. The solution, then, was to popularise 

physical education. 

However, there were challenges to refocusing schools’ energies 

toward long-neglected physical education programmes. 

First, there were few trained teachers or headteachers who could manage physical education 

8


Hima Cement built recreational facilities on school grounds. SNV worked with the DLG to increase schools’ capacities to 

provide physical education. 

programmes in their schools. The teachers 

who conducted physical education activities 

did so because of their own physical talents 

or experience, but most teachers did not 

enjoy planning or doing these activities. 

Second, the UPE sport budget is shared 

with the budget for other extracurricular 

activities, leaving schools with few resources 

at their disposal. 

Third, although the shortage of resources 

and qualified physical education teachers 

could have been addressed by seeking 

outside support, community participation 

in school activities was low. Educators did 

not mobilise communities to maintain or 

improve school sports facilities. 

Last, the lack of community mobilisation 

meant that schools continued to go without 

basic sports equipment and facilities. 

Although students could still get exercise by 

running and other sports that don’t require 

equipment, that’s not much more fun than 

sitting at a desk and studying. 

Kamwenge DLG, with SNV’s support, 

launched the School is Fun Project at 15 

selected schools in October 2009. SNV 

identified Uganda Pentecostal University 

9


The district used the new facilities to host a sports tournament. The tournament helped teachers, parents and the community to 

see the importance of having fun at school. 

(UPU) as a local capacity builder (LCB) 

who could work with the schools to improve 

their physical education programmes. 

UPU was instrumental in mapping out 

the schools’ needs. They conducted a 

baseline survey to understand the capacity 

of the schools. The baseline confirmed the 

challenges described above, so UPU forged 

ahead with a plan to make sports in school 

a real priority—and not just a forgotten slot 

in the school timetable. 

The plan started with capacity building and 

training in schools, bringing teachers and 

head teachers together to talk about how to 

better integrate games and sports into the 

school curricula. Once school leaders were 

on board, UPU worked with parent-teacher 

associations (PTAs), school management 

committees (SMCs) and community 

members to show them how sports in school 

would improve the learning experience. 

These groups grasped the concept that 

making school fun would pull more children 

willingly into school and make them more 

receptive to the entire educational process. 

After schools, parents and communities 

agreed that schools needed more (and 

10


better) physical education activities, what was needed was a corporate partner who could 

help address the gaps in physical education funding. Hima Cement gladly stepped in to 

supply equipment, trophies, transport and even manpower to host a sports tournament 

attended by 15 schools in Kamwenge District. 

The tournament was a fantastic opportunity to 

promote physical education, as schools could see 

the fun all the children were having. But hosting 

the tournament was also a challenge for the district. 

Before the tournament began it was evident that 

there would not be nearly enough qualified referees 

to officiate the games. Yet instead of citing this as 

a reason to cancel the tournament—or looking 

for money to bring in officials from outside the 

area—the school sports teachers took responsibility; 

they pulled together and formed an expert team to 

officiate the games themselves, illustrating that the 

power of people coming together is a greater resource 

than money. 

Their dedication resulted in the School is Fun 

Tournament being a great success. It raised students’ 

morale and started to change their attitudes toward 

school—attendance improved and parents began to 

participate in games with their children. In the end 

Introducing physical education to the curriculum gave 

students' brains a rest. They came back to the classroom 

energised and ready to learn. 

the district’s hard work paid off on the playing field as well. The Kamwenge District boys, 

fresh off the success of the School is Fun Tournament, went on to become champions at the 

national tournament for ball games. The continued success of all the students—on and off 

the field—rests on the ability of teachers, parents and community members to build from 

the accomplishments of the programme and continue to make school fun for children. 


Mr. Julius Akorinako, District Inspector of Schools, Kamwenge 

11


The Mpigi District Inspector of Schools had some troubling statistics. At least 60% of his 

district’s 266 primary teachers were not making work schemes or lesson plans, resorting 

to lectures to deliver lessons instead of planning student-centred exercises. The school 

inspector knew that it wasn’t entirely their fault. After all, some classes had as many as 100 

pupils and teachers were tasked with handling between two to four subjects; work schemes 

and lesson plans were hardly priorities when confronted with the realities of too many 

pupils and not enough teachers. One Mpigi teacher said, “We used to focus more on using 

the lecture method, as we thought this would enable us reach out to many pupils at the 

same time.” 

These were all things for the school inspector to consider. In theory, after visiting a school 

he would write a report outlining what that school was doing well and what it must 

do to improve, making recommendations on how to correct weaknesses. The report’s 

recommendations would form the basis for a school improvement plan (SIP), which the 

inspector would help the school to implement. Most importantly, he would share the report 

with the centre coordinating tutors (CCTs), so that they could identify gaps and design 

remedial courses for the teachers. 

Is it sustainable? 

SNV observed the high level of commitment from the DEO and the District Inspector of Schools 

to improve the standard of education in their schools. The two worked closely with other partners 

within a short period of time to make a noticeable difference. The question then is: How do we put 

in place a functioning system that works not merely because of the personalities involved? 

12


Assessment 

□ Teacher’s planning 

□ Teacher’s knowledge 

□ Recordkeeping 

□ 

□ Resource management 

□ Financial management 

Leadership 

13


School inspection reports linked directly to centre coordinating tutors (CCTs). Teachers who needed support were linked to 

CCTs so they could get hands-on instruction in appropriate teaching methodologies. 

But just as things weren’t functioning 

perfectly in the classroom, the inspection 

system was also breaking down. A crisis 

of accountability, dearth of follow-up 

mechanisms and lack of resources (financial, 

material and human) all conspired to 

undermine the system. In rural districts 

such as Mpigi, where many teachers are not 

exposed to the latest education trends and 

lack forums to upgrade their teaching skills 

and learn new methodologies, they rely 

on CCTs to provide in-services, support 

supervision and refresher courses. But due 

to constraints (both perceived and real), 

many CCTs were failing to perform this 

essential role. The link between DEOs and 

CCTs was severed. 

SNV, through regular interaction with 

district education officials, saw that while 

inspection reports were pinpointing the 

problems, they were failing to provide 

solutions. The first step was to rehabilitate 

the relationship between the DEO and 

CCT so that the inspection process was not 

just about an initial assessment but instead 

served as a starting point for improving 

teacher preparation and lesson delivery. The 

district asked for classroom teachers who 

were also Primary Leaving Examination 

(PLE) assessors to train CCTs on how they 

could reinforce the importance of work 

schemes and lesson plans. This included 

providing practical tips in which proper 

lesson planning could prepare pupils for the 

PLE, thereby improving their scores. 

14


After the initial training and rollout to 

teachers, Mpigi District has already seen a 

number of early successes. 

First, there has been a nearly 50% increase 

in teachers’ use of work schemes and 

lesson plans. Furthermore, the quality 

is improving. Before when teachers had 

developed these documents they tended to 

focus on cognitive learning at the expense of 

the equally important areas of psychomotor 

learning and affective learning. 

Second, in Mpigi UMEA primary school, 

the teachers have introduced Friday learning 

sessions for all teachers to brainstorm 

learner-centred techniques they can use in 

the upcoming week’s lessons, like group 

work, demonstrations, dramatisations and 

drawing. One Mpigi UMEA teacher says, 

“The tests I set for the pupils are more 

comprehensive now. I ensure that I capture 

all the three learning areas: knowledge, 

application and comprehension. Before I 

just used to set tests.” The teachers hope 

this will lead to pupils passing their national 

examinations with better grades. 

Third, teachers claim their pupils are more 

attentive in class and keen to share their 

knowledge. Morale is higher during lessons 

and they are confident in communicating in 

English. “What a teacher enjoys is seeing his 

children learning,” says a beaming teacher at 

St. John Bosco Katende. 

If the DEO and CCT work together and 

continue to use inspection reports to 

diagnose education issues, rather than 

punish schools, the outcomes are sure to be 

positive. 


Mr. Tony Mukasa Lusambu, District Education 

Officer, Mpigi 

Mr. Charles Olinga, District Inspector of Schools, 

Mpigi 

Lessons learnt 

• The overriding lesson is that while schools and CCTs alike continually decry a lack of resources, 

improved dialogue between education stakeholders is the actual key to improving teaching 

techniques and learning achievements. 

• The CCTs are well-placed to provide in-service training to teachers. They have a strong 

knowledge of the schools, the district and the context within which they operate, demonstrating 

that they can easily relate with their target audience—teachers. 

• Improving education is the responsibility of all stakeholders. This is true at any time, but 

especially after an inspection has taken place. 

15


If there are no mirrors in classrooms, how do teachers see themselves? The answer is that 

they see themselves in the reflections of their students. A student who can barely keep her 

eyes open reflects a teacher who is not engaging her in the learning process. On the other 

hand, a smiling student who is eager to contribute indicates a teacher employing good 

techniques. In a perfect world, teachers would be able to read students’ body language and 

adjust their lessons and teaching styles accordingly. But in the real world they need help. 

With support from Edukans, a Netherlands-based NGO and SNV partner that 

provides financial and technical support to develop education in Uganda, the MOSIQE 

(Monitoring, Sharing & Improving the Quality of Education) Project began as a pilot in 

Bukedea District to literally show teachers how they were doing. 

In MOSIQE, teacher education experts from the University of Amsterdam worked with 

primary teaching colleges (PTCs) and a local capacity builder (LCB), Transform Uganda, 

to film what teachers and children were doing in their classrooms. PTC staff and cluster 

coordinating tutors (CCTs) then used the videos as part of professional development 

sessions. 

The videos served as the starting point for self-assessment, as teachers identified their own 

strengths and weaknesses as they saw them on screen. They watched them in groups— 

together with teachers, headteachers, district education officials and PTC staff—to identify, 

share, use and internalize the best teaching ideas they witnessed. There they advised each 

other on how to practically improve their teaching methods. After reflecting on their 

own and each other’s teaching, instructors discussed how to vary their methods and start 

Teachers have started to ask themselves, “How can I make 

a difference in my classroom? " 

16


Teachers used the videos to critique their own performances in the classroom and identify ways to improve. 

teaching the “whole child” by using more 

interactive and cooperative methods 

and also focusing on students’ social and 

emotional development. 

Each individual teacher then developed 

an action plan to improve their practices, 

keeping in mind classroom realities. Of 

course, Ugandan teachers face many 

challenges, like a shortage of human and 

financial resources, high pupil-teacher ratios 

and non-availability of textbooks and other 

materials. As part of the project, teachers 

shared inexpensive, creative solutions 

that could overcome the lack of teaching 

learning materials, even in a classroom with 

only 8 textbooks for 65 pupils, as was the 

case for one teacher. 

The teachers were filmed every six months 

and shown the “before and after” from 

the video clips so they could see their 

improvement. Many teachers made great 

strides in interacting with students, using 

multiple approaches in lessons so that 

students with different learning needs could 

benefit. For instance, teachers who once 

just lectured have begun using educational 

materials in the classroom so that visual 

learners can get more out of the lessons. 

Others have changed their classroom seating 

arrangements so students can learn together 

in small groups. 

17


Teachers are now asking for more needsbased 

training. MOSIQE has reignited their 

love of teaching. They can see how this 

project builds upon and acknowledges their 

existing knowledge and skills, while further 

developing their professional effectiveness. 

Based on the positive feedback, SNV 

shared its experience with other districts, 

organising exchange visits for district 

officials and PTC staff to visit the project 

in Bukedea and sending the University 

of Amsterdam experts to PTCs in Mbale, 

Kapchorwa and Kumi, where the visits 

created an excitement about the project. 

The two core PTCs in Mbale and Soroti, 

which cover multiple districts with their 

CCT support services, are taking the lead. 

Through its partner, Child Fund, SNV 

coordinated the purchase of two low-cost, 

easy-to-use video cameras and trained 

selected Mbale and Kumi District and PTC 

staff in video documentation so teachers in 

these districts could evaluate their own and 

each other’s teaching practices. The districts 

have even increased the scope of the project 

to deal with their particular needs, using the 

cameras to identify problems and monitor 

progress in other areas, such as school 

infrastructure and community participation. 

Embassy, is institutionalising MOSIQE as 

part of its teacher mentorship programme, 

starting with the Mbale and Soroti core 

PTCs. 

As these programmes move forward, CCTs 

and district inspectors must work closely 

together. Merely videotaping teachers 

does not improve teaching quality unless 

they also get support in resolving their 

individual weaknesses. Teachers can 

continuously improve only when they study 

their own practices and see the results 

in the classroom. School leadership is 

critical in this process; CCTs should work 

to strengthen headteachers’ capacity to 

support teachers’ professional development. 

This initiative has demonstrated that the 

role of the teacher in the education process 

is evolving. To make teaching “learnercentred”, 

a teacher must become a facilitator 

in the classroom, helping students to learn 

independently. The videotaping programme 

has helped many teachers to better see their 

new roles as facilitators. 


Transform Uganda, Kumi 

Other education actors are taking notice. 

UNICEF, with support from the Dutch 


• Developing partners and networking are critical to replicating projects, as is 

“selling” innovative, cost-effective ideas to others. 

• While identifying problems such as teacher and pupil absenteeism is important, it 

is more important to develop interventions such as the MOSIQE Project to turn 

these problems into opportunities for change. 

Suggestions for replicating the project 

• Document whether video-based professional development for teachers is ultimately 

improving student learning. 

• Ask children for their feedback on the effects of MOSIQE on the teaching and 

learning in their classrooms. 

18


Uganda is not known for its reading culture. With few books 

circulating through communities and schools, children’s literacy 

levels are staggeringly low. The 2009 National Assessment of 

Progress in Education (NAPE) revealed that only 56% of P3 

students and 48% of P6 students could read at grade level. 

The 2010 Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) by RTI 

International in collaboration with the Ministry of Education 

and Sport (MoES) found that 51% of P2 students in the Central 

Region and 82% of P2 students in the Lango region could not 

read a simple paragraph. Obviously, students who have trouble 

reading also have trouble writing. Yet for children to get a quality 

education, they must be able to express themselves in written form. 

In 2010, in an effort to improve reading and writing skills in Kumi 

District, SNV contracted Fair Pen as a local capacity builder 

(LCB). Fair Pen uses a two-pronged approach that teaches pupils 

journalism skills and trains teachers to be facilitators of the process 

(rather than instructors of it). Fair Pen worked with a committed 

district local government and primary teaching college (PTC) to 

establish its programme in six pilot schools where it was sure to be 

supported by headteachers. 

The goal of Fair Pen is to give children techniques that many of 

today’s journalists would do well to learn, showing them how to 

conduct interviews, gather information, use a variety of sources 

and, above all, write creatively. The product at the end of the term 

is a newsletter they can share with their classmates, communities 

and other schools. Producing a newsletter in this manner gives 

pupils an opportunity to independently explore things that interest 

them, a rare event in today’s schools. While some might fear 

that newsletters would devolve into a series of stories on football 

and pop singers, Fair Pen has a handle on it, training teachers to 

facilitate the process so that the pupils explore topics relevant to 

their lives and communities. Thus, by the end of the term children 

have learned and written about children’s rights, their cultures 

and traditions, sanitation and health issues, climate change and 

environmental protection—almost without realising it. Since they 


• Children learn better 

when their parents and 

communities are involved 

in their education. 

• Teachers and children 

are able to see learning 

as something that can 

also take place outside 

the classroom without 

textbooks or blackboards. 

• Children like to work 

in teams and have 

demonstrated how 

seriously they take their 

roles and responsibilities as 

journalists. 

• The project improves 

collaboration between 

schools, DEOs and CCTs. 

• Teachers are starting to use 

the newsletters as teaching 

aids in different classes, in 

lieu of textbooks and other 

education materials, which 

are often lacking. 

19


are exploring instead of trying to absorb 

lectures, they sometimes forget they are 

learning. 

But Fair Pen has also been successful at 

endowing pupils with life skills as they 

learn to organise themselves as leaders 

and team members with their own roles, 

responsibilities and deadlines. Throughout 

the term the children work in teams to not 

only identify problems to write about but 

also to search out constructive solutions, 

thereby building critical thinking skills. 

They learn to separate facts from opinion, 

while discovering a wide range of the 

latter as they build consensus within their 

teams. The project taps into their creativity, 

channelling it into their writing so that they 

can appeal to the wider reading audience. 

While the pilot only started in September 

2010, children have picked up the new 

skills quickly and have been enthusiastic in 

getting information from different sources, 

including their neighbours, grandparents 

and even district education officials. In 

some schools, teachers read the newsletter 

at assemblies or place it where more 

people—including parents and community 

members—can read the articles. Teachers 

have even spontaneously developed their 

own newsletters. 

The district education office has shown 

its appreciation for the project, with the 

DEO stating, “I will make sure that the Fair 

Pen teachers are not transferred for the 

coming years, and I will advise headteachers 

to allocate some of the UPE grants for 

continuation of the Fair Pen project.” 

Indeed, because SNV and Fair Pen worked 

in close cooperation with the district 

education office and PTC, both now feel 

ownership of the project and are sharing the 

concept with other schools and subcounties 

in Kumi District. The Kumi District 

Education Sector Working Group is creating 

opportunities for it to be replicated in more 

schools. The Centre Coordinating Tutor of 

Mukongoro Subcounty stated, “The project 

has made everyone enthusiastic about 

alternative ways of teaching and learning, 

while also creating improved relationships 

with the community. The schools in Kumi 

and elsewhere in Uganda are exchanging 

their Fair Pen newspapers each term.” 

Selected teachers are also trained as coaches 

to enable the project to continue beyond 

the Fair Pen-SNV involvement. 

Developing a newsletter is a simple and lowcost 

tool that is nevertheless highly effective 

at strengthening teamwork, organisational 

skills and critical thinking. With some luck, 

it will create a reading culture that will 

improve students’ literacy and keep them 

interested in school. 


Ms. Nakabuya Josephine, Fair Pen Coordinator, 

Tel. (+256) 0772 578 876, Email: nakjosephine@ 

yahoo.com 

As part of Fair Pen, students 

learned how to conduct 

interviews, gather information, 

attribute sources and write 

creatively to produce their own 

newsletter. 

20


The best way to amplify your voice is with a microphone—especially if that microphone is 

connected via radio waves to thousands of homes. That’s exactly what the children of Arua 

used last year to share their views on education. 

In late 2010 Arua District Local Government (DLG) wanted to strengthen the quality 

of education. SNV led the DLG through a consultation process, through which district 

leaders realised that its schools were not child friendly, in part because children had no 

role in making education decisions. Despite the fact that children bear the brunt of a poor 

quality education, neither they nor their parents have the power to make decisions about 

the kind of education they need. This is contrary to the Child Rights Convention (CRC), 

which states: “Children have a right to express opinions and their views shall be sought and 

considered on all matters that affect their lives, individually and collectively.” 

SNV and the district agreed that using radio would be an innovative way to involve children 

and draw the community’s attention to pupils’ views. The DLG was convinced that a better 

understanding of children’s feelings and perceptions could help educators better reach 

students. 

“Children have a right to express opinions and their 

views shall be sought and considered on all matters 

that affect their lives, individually and collectively.” 

21


Children planned their own radio programmes, using them as a forum for talking about the issues most important to them. 

Listeners were impressed by their insights on today's education challenges. 

Radio is a wonderful avenue for increasing 

child participation for two reasons. First, 

most homes in West Nile have a radio, 

which they use to listen to programmes 

about social and development issues. 

Arua alone has five radio stations that 

reach over 700,000 people. Second, using 

radio improves children’s speech fluency, 

creativity and self esteem, exemplifying the 

purpose of extracurricular activities. 

To test out the idea, the district identified 

three schools to take part in the program, 

with each school tapping three girls and 

three boys to write, edit and record shows. 

To help them with this task, SNV brought 

Ssonko on board as a local capacity 

builder (LCB). Ssonko worked with each 

of the schools to select teachers to guide 

the children and help them present their 

arguments clearly. 

Each school produced shows that aired 

on Nile FM and Radio Pacis. The most 

popular format was a call-in programme. 

The students gave their talking points to 

a moderator, who discussed them with 

the children and then let them take calls 

22


from listeners. The children highlighted a range of education 

challenges they face at home, at school and in their communities. 

At school it was clear that: 

• There are not enough textbooks or other materials for all 

students. Furthermore, classes are overcrowded. In other 

words, budgets for materials and learning spaces have not 

kept pace with increases in enrolment. 

• Many educators rely on corporal punishment to discipline 

students, causing physical pain and psychological 

embarrassment that discourages children from going to 

school. 

• School latrines are dirty and there are few, if any, changing 

rooms. 

• Older students bully and tease younger students. 

In their home lives children pointed out that: 

• Many children feel mistreated by their stepmothers. They 

want the DLG to educate parents about children’s rights. 

• Many children witness domestic violence, which often leads 

to the parents separating. The children urged their peers to 

report these incidents to community elders, who might be 

able to help the parents reconcile for the sake of the children. 

• There was not enough to eat and money was often scarce. 

• Girls have too many chores, taking time away from studies. 

The children wanted chores to be spread more evenly 

between boys and girls. 

There are also some trends within communities that discourage 

children from getting an education. They called on local councils 

to enforce existing laws protecting children and work with 

community members to explain the importance of education in 

order to solve the following problems: 

• Communities undervalue girls’ education. Some girls are 

pushed into early marriages, which result in pregnancies that 

signal the end of their education. 

• There is a high alcoholism rate, with parents even bringing 

their children into drinking spots to drink with them. 

The response from listeners was overwhelmingly positive, with 

many community members phoning in to express their support. 

Headteachers themselves were happy with the improvements 

they saw in parents and pupils as a result of the programme. 

“The community, especially parents, appreciated the programme. 

Other parents wish their children too were involved,” said one. 


Mr. Nicholas Tembo, District Education Officer, Arua 

Next steps 

The programmes have 

demonstrated that pupils 

are capable of expressing 

themselves and developing 

their analytical skills, while 

parents and communities 

are ready to listen and 

even change their attitudes 

toward education. SNV 

and the DLG can take this 

intervention to the next 

step by: 

• Inviting the 

participating students 

to multi-stakeholder 

processes (MSPs) so 

that district officers 

are forced to answer 

children’s concerns 

directly and integrate 

their views into district 

planning and budgeting. 

• Involving organisations 

that have expressed an 

interest in facilitating 

radio programmes. For 

example, Caritas offered 

their airtime for the talk 

shows. 

• Including more 

schools so that more 

communities can 

benefit. 

• Expanding to other 

venues. Why stop at 

radio? There are other 

ways in which children 

can air their concerns 

and participate in the 

education process, 

including inter-school 

debates, music and 

drama competitions and 

newspaper articles, with 

Nile FM even wanting 

to produce a TV show 

with students. 

23

Community Participation 

Community participation involves everyone taking an interest in children's education and wellbeing at school. 

SNV’s strategy to increase both the 

relevance and quality of education 

students receive has revolved around 

several issues: access to quality education, 

school leadership and accountability. 

Although the Universal Primary Education 

(UPE) programme has abolished tuition 

fees, parents still have a number of schoolrelated 

costs, including books, stationery 

and equipment, exam fees, uniforms and 

transportation. 

Together, these items can cost just as much 

as tuition fees and make access to education 

inequitable. Those who can afford to pay, 

receive a quality education. Those who cannot 

afford to pay, receive a poor-quality education 

or no education at all, with girls most affected 

by families’ tough economic decisions. 

To make education more equitable, educators 

have been searching for a more effective 

partnership between schools, parents 

and communities. The idea is to share 

24


responsibility for creating quality education by 

getting communities and parents to buy in to 

the education system and create solutions to 

their common problems. 

National and international players continue 

to try to prescribe the environment in 

which a quality education can be delivered. 

It is a school environment with a limitless 

supply of textbooks and materials, gleaming 

classrooms and immaculately-dressed pupils. 

But few schools or communities are like 

this. Prescriptive national and international 

programmes don’t fully appreciate the local 

context, passing over information that could 

guide effective ground operations. After all, 

the perceptions, actions and decisions of local 

schools and communities shape the extent to 

which a quality education can be provided. 

The continuing gap between national and 

international interventions and local realities 

demonstrates that actors must encourage 

community participation if they hope to 

integrate theory with practice. 

The following stories look at several 

relationships between local schools and their 

surrounding communities. Together, these 

relationships are referred to as “community 

participation”. 

Community participation is a participatory 

strategy or approach that opens up education 

service delivery processes so that they can 

benefit from the input of all stakeholders, 

namely children, local communities, teaching 

staff, district education officials and private 

education practitioners. 

Involving these different groups can enrich 

and improve access, retention and leadership 

in primary education provision. By working 

together, these groups can find appropriate 

solutions to common challenges within their 

schools, such as tackling inequity, training good 

leaders and sustaining the educational system. 

Community participation helps these groups 

feel ownership of the interventions taking place 

in their schools. 

In the following stories, SNV describes its 

experiences of what has worked and what has 

not with regard to community participation. 

Readers may have questions about what 

community participation means. For instance, 

is it about providing financial resources or 

labour force? Or is it about being able to 

participate and decide? These questions 

are explored throughout the stories, which 

throw light on the approaches applied to 

create an environment in which schools and 

communities work closely together to provide 

all Ugandan children with a quality education. 

Children First demonstrates the power of 

contributions from Kumi pupils and parents 

to school management. In the article Junior 

Achievement, Mpigi students discover how to 

apply what they have learned in school as they 

become active members of the community. In 

District Education Ordinances, Arua District 

seeks to make parents and community 

members take responsibility for combating 

absenteeism. School Lunches showcases 

Kiboga District’s efforts to provide lunch 

to an additional 4000 students. And, finally, 

Community Leads the Way shows the creative 

local solutions that Kyenjojo parents developed 

to address school problems. 

Each community is different and therefore 

developed its own solutions. While the 

following stories show a diversity of contexts 

and solutions, they also put forward lessons 

learned to guide replication in other 

communities. 

“Quality education is not acquired in isolation from the social setting in which students 

live. It embraces the notion of education as an empowering process which promotes 

social change and contributes to building a just and democratic society. „ 

— Beyond Access: Transforming Policy and Practice for Gender Equality in Education 

25


Children are meant to be seen and not heard. Just an expression? Not in some schools, 

where students are regarded as passive recipients of education rather than as active 

participants. This environment promotes teachers as the true gatekeepers of education, 

imparting knowledge to ignorant children who are meant to quietly listen and memorise 

what they are told. 

Parents are often silenced as well. They are expected to send their children to school and 

provide them with uniforms and school supplies, but don’t have a chance to voice their 

opinions on what happens in the classroom because too often 

schools do not value their contributions. 

In Mukongoro Subcounty in Kumi District, pupils and most 

parents were also voiceless in the school planning process. School 

management committees (SMCs) and parent-teacher associations 

(PTAs) who supposedly represent the wider community did not 

ask for other parents’ opinions, let alone children’s views. They did 

not know what parents and children liked or disliked about their 

schools and they did not consider their dreams for creating better 

futures. Teachers and headteachers made the decisions for parents 

and children, many of whom were afraid to express themselves 

and became detached from what happened in school, including 

Few key stakeholders were engaged in 

the learning process. Others felt that their dreams were ignored 

assessing and improving schools. 

and stopped attending, leading to poor test results and a strained 

relationship between schools and the communities they are meant to serve. 

The Kumi District Education Officer (DEO) desired a new approach for Mukongoro’s 

primary schools—one that would involve more parents and pupils in school affairs and 

give them a voice to express what was most important to them. SNV decided to help the 

DEO in this endeavour. It trained Transform Uganda, a Kumi-based non-governmental 

26


SNV helped Kumi District develop and distribute school self-assessment tools for pupils and their parents. 

organisation working with the district local 

government, schools and primary teacher 

colleges (PTCs), to take six Mukongoro 

primary schools—Mukongoro Township, 

Mukongoro Rock, Kakures, Oladot, Akadot 

and Osopotoit—through self assessments, 

which asked children, their parents and 

surrounding community members questions 

like: 

• What do you like about your school and 

why? 

• What do you dislike about your school 

and why? 

Challenges faced 

• The community expected hardware. They thought the project was to implement their priorities, 

such as constructing latrines, building teachers houses and classroom blocks, and providing 

midday meals. This is at odds with SNV’s approach, which is to bring people and organisations 

together and maximise their shared capabilities—not write a check. 

• The bureaucratic nature of local governments also presented a challenge. While it is necessary 

to work closely with DLGs to ensure they take ownership of the intervention, busy schedules 

prevented it, thereby lengthening the process. 

• Timing the activities was not easy and school programmes had to be interfered with. 

27


The school self-assessment results showed that children need lunches and clean water to keep them healthy and energised at 

school. 

• What do you want to be changed in your 

school? 

• What should the district government, 

the PTC, SMCs, teachers, parents 

and pupils each do to bring about this 

change? 

• How should this change be monitored 

and by whom? 

The different groups had a number of valid 

recommendations. Two of the most cited 

areas for improvement were 1) school 

sanitation facilities being so poor that they 

kept some children, especially girls, from 

going to school; and 2) a lack of basic 

needs to get pupils through the day, with 

many going without food or attending class 

without school supplies. 

After discussing the results with the 

SMCs and PTAs, Mukongoro educators 

incorporated the biggest priorities into 

school improvement plans (SIPs). The 

Centre Coordinating Tutor (CCT) 

supported the whole process, while the 

DEO incorporated some of the budgetrelated 

school improvement priorities in the 

Kumi District Development Plan. The SMCs 

and PTAs welcomed this more inclusive 

school development planning process 

and even suggested continuing to use the 

school self-assessment tool for planning and 

monitoring improvements. The assessment 

28


recommendations helped them clearly prioritise their goals for the coming school year. 

Including children and parents in the school management process fostered a sense of 

responsibility and ownership among them. It reinvigorated community-wide participation 

in the education process because everyone’s ideas were valued and incorporated into school 

development planning. The difference has been clear: 

• More parents now provide scholastic materials and 

midday snacks for their children; they also actively 

attend meetings, including sessions where they 

work together with teaching staff and children to 

develop low-cost learning materials. 

• SMCs and PTAs are working more closely with the 

wider community to make school improvements 

and initiate learning projects in the community. 

• Joint meetings between the SMCs and PTAs are 

taking place. 

• Children have better attitudes and habits toward 

hygiene. Schools have not only provided hand 

washing facilities for the children, but have also 

made safe water a priority, making the schools 

more child friendly. SNV contributed by training 

the teachers, pupils and community on good 

WaSH practices, which, according to the DEO, has 

led to higher attendance, retention and enrolment. 

Educators should realise that pupils, parents and community 

members have valuable ideas and seek their input. 

When decision makers gather others’ views, they make 

their jobs easier. It starts with progressive and supportive DEOs and subcounty education 

secretaries who recognise the contributions of their communities and involve them in the 

process. As this project showed, parents and pupils have an opinion about their schools, are 

eager to talk about their own needs and priorities, and are willing and able to make their 

schools better places. 


Mr. Charles Okol, District Education Officer, Kumi 

Next step 

Neighbouring schools expressed a strong desire to be included in the project and the initiative has 

already been included in the district education sector plan. Transform Uganda will continue to work 

with the DEO to replicate what is happening in the six pilot schools to all Kumi District schools, while 

sharing the experiences with others at quarterly district education sector working group meetings. 

29


Imagine studying for more than 10 years— 

learning everything from math and science 

to English and history—then graduating 

and having no idea how you’re going 

to make money. How do you turn your 

knowledge of isosceles triangles and past 

participles into a job? 

That’s the situation the Ugandan education 

system puts students in every year. It 

overemphasises examination grades, forcing 

children to cram information in their heads 

instead of trying to understand and apply 

what they are learning to their day-to-day 

lives. 

The Junior Achievement ( JA) Programme 

sets out to solve the problems of an 

examination-driven education that pays 

little attention to life skills or job readiness. 

The programme brings practical skills into 

the classroom as it teaches pupils to be 

responsible citizens, creative thinkers and 

entrepreneurs. Key to its success is the 

understanding that children learn best not 

by hearing and seeing, but by doing. They 

must be physically and actively involved in 

learning both in and outside the classroom. 

The programme curriculum includes: 

• Learning about how everyday products 

are made. Mpigi pupils, for instance, 

went to see the production methods 

used to make donuts, which involve 

maths for measuring and chemistry for 

baking. 

• Analysing how money moves through an 

economy. Through trips to banks, village 

savings and loan association (VSLA) 

schemes and local businesses, students 

can see the savings and loan systems 

at work, helping them understand the 

process for when they are ready to start 

their own businesses. 

• Taking field trips into the community 

to study how people earn their livings. 

The trips show them not just what jobs 

are available, but what services people 

need—services they may be able to 

provide. 

30


Junior Achievement teaches children about their community so that they understand how their studies relate to daily life. 

Classes took field trips to learn about what jobs people perform in the community. 

• Visiting community decision-making 

bodies to learn about public discourse 

and gain a sense of civic duty. 

• Looking into the role of government 

and how government plans can be 

supported, helping them realise their 

role in maintaining a functioning 

democratic government. 

• Studying why people pay taxes and how 

the government uses that money. 

SNV, through the Alternative Teaching and 

Learning Approaches (ATLAS) programme, 

brought the JA programme to ten primary 

schools in Mpigi district based primarily 

on the willingness of their management to 

think outside the box (this strategy yielded 

good results later). Mpigi district is located 

in the central region of Uganda, where 

children under the age of 15 make up half 

of the population. They graduate en masse 

from school into an unbalanced economy, 

where they must compete for jobs in order 

to earn money to provide for themselves 

and their families. 

Although JA is an international programme 

that has been implemented in schools across 

the globe, SNV understood that it had to be 

tweaked in order to become locally relevant. 

In early 2009, SNV worked with JA Uganda 

staff to customise the Junior Achievement 

manuals and handouts for rural and 

peri-urban Ugandan schools in time to 

conduct a training of trainers involving a 

headteacher and teacher from each school, 

who would run the programme in their 

schools. The endeavour began in earnest 

in September 2009, with seven of the ten 

schools delivering the first session of the JA 

programme. 

31


Immediately, the programme demonstrated 

that experiential learning greatly enhances 

the education process. Pupils who 

completed the programme observed that 

it helped them understand their class 

work better, especially social studies, as 

evidenced by one P5 pupil’s remark: “We 

are now more aware of what happens in our 

communities by this new way of teaching.” 

Through the programme, pupils have been 

able to identify what career paths they want 

to pursue after school, while teachers have 

found that the programme improved their 

instruction by relating the environment the 

pupils live in to the education concepts they 

are introduced to. While it remains to be 

seen what the job market will look like for 

these junior achievers upon graduation, they 

already have a head start on turning their 

academic learning into real-world success. 




Mr. Charles Olinga, District Inspector of Schools, 

Mpigi 


The programme did not succeed in every school. The reason for failure was usually 

because other teachers and new headteachers were not properly introduced to the 

programme. Future training workshops should involve district officers, school heads, 

parents and students so that they can see the value of JA and hear success stories from 

those who have benefited from the programme. 

32


Since it was introduced in 1997, Universal Primary Education (UPE) has dramatically 

increased primary school enrolment in Uganda. Yet many parents still do not send their 

children to school regularly, do not sufficiently budget for uniforms or school lunches 

and do not monitor their children's academic performance. Ugandan communities have 

misinterpreted the abolition of school fees under UPE to mean that the government would 

pay for all costs associated with schooling, including school supplies, uniforms and school 

lunches. 

To address this, in September 2008 the Arua District Local Government (DLG), along 

with civil society organisations, developed an education ordinance that clearly outlined 

the roles and responsibilities of parents (as well as community members, local leaders and 

teachers) and penalties for those who fail to fulfil their responsibilities. It reads in part: 

“A parent or a guardian or any other person who has custody of a child should not deny 

a child the opportunity of attending school by refusing to provide: school uniform, 

stationery, adequate food, shelter or medical care. A parent, guardian or any person who 

contravenes this section commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine...or 

imprisonment...or both.” 

“A parent or a guardian should not deny a child the opportunity 

of attending school by refusing to provide school uniform, 

stationery, adequate food, shelter or medical care.” 

33


The Arua District Education Ordinance made it clear that everyone is responsible for making sure children attend school. 

This ordinance, one of very few of its kind 

within Uganda, seemed to be a model for 

clarifying UPE’s intent. Unfortunately, 

although Arua education activists had 

pushed for the law, it has not been properly 

implemented or enforced. As one parentteacher 

association (PTA) leader said, 

“When this ordinance was made, it had no 

owner.” Although school inspections have 

begun occurring more regularly and teacher 

attendance has improved to 80-90% (up 

from roughly 70%), implementation has 

stalled since the ordinance passed. In an 

effort to revitalise the ordinance, in 2010 

SNV agreed to help Arua DLG review 

its implementation through a series of 

activities, including: 

• Multi-stakeholder meetings at 

district and subcounty levels to 

assess the progress and challenges in 

implementation 

• Interviews and group discussions 

with headteachers, teachers, school 

management committees (SMCs), 

parents and pupils at 16 schools 

• Document reviews at school, subcounty 

and district levels 

• School observations 

• Interviews with key people at district 

and subcounty levels 

• Feedback and validation workshops at 

the district level 

SNV’s intervention highlighted some 

persistent challenges. The district and its 

subcounties made little effort to notify 

communities and teachers about the 

ordinance. Nor did they enforce it apart 

34


from occasional school inspections, 

which provided little guidance for schools 

struggling with attendance. Children 

still reported late to school, with schools 

registering only between 10-30% even by 

the start of the second week of the term. 

When they did come, many still lacked 

scholastic materials. Additionally, Terego 

County, which used to belong to another 

district but has since reverted to Arua, 

felt no ownership of the ordinance since it 

was implemented when it was in another 

district. 

SNV’s review of the ordinance’s 

implementation has helped put things 

back on track, as it guided Arua DLG to 

appropriate solutions to these challenges. 

As a result of the review: 

• All 28 subcounties in Arua have 

developed ordinance implementation 

plans and the district has combined 

these plans into a cohesive district 

implementation plan. 

• The Arua DLG has authorised all 

28 subcounties to budget for the 

implementation of the ordinance during 

the 2011/2012 financial year. 

• Arua District has formed—and provided 

terms of reference for—an ordinance 

implementation committee headed by 

the secretary of the Arua Social Services 

Committee. 

• The DLG has stated its intention 

to develop policy guidelines that 

clarify roles and responsibilities in 

implementing the ordinance. 

The SNV–DLG review has acted as “a 

wake-up” call for district leaders, who 

have redoubled their efforts to enforce the 

ordinance, realising a need for guidelines 

and performance indicators for all actors 

involved. They have also realised that 

they do not need outside resources to 

effectively enforce the ordinance. Rather, 

subcounty authorities, local police, parents 

and community members are mandated by 

Ugandan law to enforce it. 

The long-term success of the ordinance will 

be determined by the degree to which the 

community takes ownership of it. Coercive 

policing would only induce resentment and 

hostility from community members. District 

leaders must convince the community of 

the value of education so that they will 

voluntarily abide by the ordinance. 


Mr. Nicholas Tembo, District Education Officer, 

Arua 


• While it took a concerted effort by district leaders to enact the ordinance, such political will 

must extend to implementing and enforcing the law. 

• Forming an ordinance is not an end in itself. All local laws must also clearly outline how they 

can be implemented and enforced—as well as who is responsible for overseeing enforcement. 

These mechanisms should be developed during the initial stages of community consultations 

and annexed directly into the ordinance so that communities are aware of who is supposed to be 

doing what as soon as the law is enacted. 

• Community programmes require constant follow-up in order for implementation to succeed. 

Each step of the action plan needs a moment for critical self-assessment. When action plans are 

generated it becomes easy to keep track and hold the responsible actors accountable. With each 

step of the action plan that is successfully done, the community becomes more motivated to 

participate in the programme. 

35


Hungry students make for poor learners. That’s the conclusion six 

districts—Kyankwanzi, Kiboga, Rakai, Butambala, Gomba and Mpigi— 

came to with SNV’s help. 

“We have been 

empowered on 

our roles by SNV 

because it is 

better to teach 

someone how to 

catch fish than to 

give him fish.” 

In 2009 and 2010 SNV held “multi-stakeholder platforms” (MSPs) 

in those districts, comprehensive meetings where everyone with an 

interest in education—headteachers, school management committees, 

parents, religious leaders, district education officers and other district 

and subcounty technical officers—could talk about the state of schools 

and collectively seek out solutions. Everyone agreed that a lack of school 

lunch was at least partly responsible for poor pupil performance. 

To be sure, there were other problems. For one, parents were not 

involved in school activities, perhaps because they did not know what 

their role in the education system was. Indeed, few stakeholders knew 

what was expected of them. The different messages about school lunch 

provision being passed from politicians and government officials to 

parents and communities often conflict with the 2008 Education Act, 

sowing confusing. These challenges are interconnected. With parents 

and schools disagreeing as to who was responsible for school lunches, 

the solution to school lunches had to comprehensively address the 

failures of the parent-school relationship. 

In this spirit, SNV worked through local capacity builders (LCBs) to 

carry out a baseline survey on the status of student feeding and the 

level of parent participation in 60 schools throughout the six districts. 

The results validated the assertions that school lunches should be a 

primary focus. The LCBs then held dialogue meetings with stakeholders 

36


In addition to providing grain to the school for porridge, parents maintained school gardens to supplement school lunches. 

(parents, school management committees, 

local leaders, community, pupils and 

subcounty officials). The meetings were 

meant to demonstrate the link between poor 

parental participation in school feeding 

and student learning. SNV and the districts 

hoped that if parents could change their 

mindsets and involve themselves in school 

feeding, their children would perform 

better academically. The dialoguing exercise 

was interactive, as the stakeholders were 

responsible for determining their children’s 

destiny—the LCBs were simply there 

to facilitate and guide the process. The 

methodology obviously has a bearing on the 

end results. To achieve any lasting impact, 

SNV strived to create an environment 

where the different groups could meet as 

respected equals and genuinely dialogue on 

school feeding and the community-school 

relationship. It was the first step to a better 

partnership. 

When given the opportunity to engage in 

genuine dialogue, parents demonstrated 

a strong commitment to school activities. 

Seizing the initiative, 20 of the schools 

represented in the meetings volunteered to 

pilot a parent-led school lunch project. As 

they envisioned it, the lunch would take 

three forms: packed meals, porridge made 

with a modest grain contribution from 

parents, and food from the school gardens 

that were established as part of the project. 

A post-baseline survey tracked the progress 

made by these initiatives, showing a 

moderate positive change. More than 4200 

students who previously did not have school 

37


lunch began receiving it daily. The results 

also showed that parents were becoming 

more involved—not just by taking part in 

the feeding project, but by coming to open 

days and school meetings as well. A review 

of meeting minutes found that even the 

quality of discussions between parents and 

schools had improved considerably. 

While it is too early to tell whether school 

feeding has positively impacted student 

learning, this parent-led project has 

certainly laid the groundwork for creating 

alert and energetic students. 


Mr. Prosper Rwamasaka, District Education Officer, 

Kiboga 

Mr. Semugabi John Bosco, District Education 

Officer, Rakai 



Challenges 

• The schools only seemed to invite parents to open days and sports days when they 

needed money for a school activity, which discouraged many parents from attending. 

Schools should invite parents to come to all open days and sports days, so that they 

become more involved in school activities. 

• Follow-ups could have been stronger. The project needed more assistance from district 

education offices in mobilising parents, inspecting the schools and conducting followups. 

• Some school management committee members were hesitant to assert themselves. 

38


Like many districts in Uganda, Kyenjojo has big problems. Universal Primary Education 

(UPE) has brought millions of Ugandan children into its classrooms, but has also created 

fresh challenges by putting considerable stress on human and physical resources. Ninety 

three pupils sit together in an average classroom but only one in every eight has a desk; 

the district does not have enough houses for teachers or clean latrines for students; and 

teachers and headteachers alike are often absent, meaning children are lucky to learn 

anything at all once they reach school. 

SNV wanted to show communities that they have the potential to solve many of these 

problems on their own. First, however, they had to get them involved at all—few parents 

even attended general meetings. To do this, SNV facilitated multi-stakeholder platforms 

(MSPs) with schools throughout Butiiti. MSPs are community dialogue meetings that 

bring everyone with a stake in primary education together to identify and resolve education 

problems. MSPs help people understand their respective roles and how they relate to each 

other. On one side, schools are able to discuss their issues with district-level policymakers. 

On the other, districts can easily disseminate information to schools and communities. 

Year 

Attendance at joint 

PTA/SMC Meeting 

Attendance at 1st 

general meeting 

Attendance at 2nd 

general meeting 

2008 15 47 76 

2009 12 72 82 

2010 26 97 124 

39


The pupil mentorship scheme paired P7 students with community members, who gave them career guidance and encourage 

them to study. 

The first Butiiti MSP produced concrete 

resolutions. Using participatory methods 

like SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, 

Opportunities, Threats) & PEST (Political, 

Economic, Social, Technological) analyses 

and priority ranking, the stakeholders 

effectively identified problems, as well 

as their causes and effects. The MSP 

participants were dismayed that for several 

years Butiiti had the best performing 

schools in Kyenjojo District but was 

now lagging behind other subcounties. 

Something had gone wrong; parents had 

abdicated their responsibilities. How 

then to mobilise parents and community 

members and revitalise school leadership? 

Realising that a package of interventions 

would yield better results than a big onetime 

intervention, MSP participants 

initiated several community-driven 

solutions: 

The Butiiti community-based 

incentive scheme 

An initiative to reverse schools’ 

deteriorating standards by rewarding 

pupil, teacher, headteacher and school 

performance for good practices like 

punctuality, use of teaching aids and 

preparations of lesson plans, participation 

in co-curricular activities, PLE results and 

leadership. Awards ranged from certificates 

to special study outings and recognition at 

school parades. 

“The Butiiti Academia” newsletter 

An initiative to improve literacy by 

40


encouraging pupils to write articles about 

various themes. 100 copies are distributed 

to each of the schools once a term. Many 

schools use it as a teaching aid. 

The Butiiti scholarship fund 

An initiative to establish a database of 

potential donors from Butiiti subcounty. 

School community garden 

An initiative being piloted in four schools 

to boost school incomes while also 

establishing a learning site for increased 

household food security and child nutrition. 

The harvested crops are eaten by the pupils 

and teachers at lunch. The teachers also 

utilise the garden as a teaching aid for 

lessons on agriculture. One school has 

created a herb garden that can be used for 

first aid supplies. Parents weed the garden 

together, then hold meetings to talk about 

school issues. 

Pupil mentorship scheme 

An initiative to improve pass grades for 

the Primary Leaving Examination (PLE). 

Mentors are chosen from parents, teachers 

and other volunteers. Primary seven 

students were selected and attached to 

the mentors for two months. The mentors 

gave career guidance and worked to instil 

confidence in the students, showing 

extra concern. Since last year’s pilot, 

more students have been able to join the 

mentoring programme, including primary 

six pupils. 

The 10 household cluster system 

An initiative to quickly mobilise the 

community. Different parents are organised 

according to village or neighbourhood in 

groups of 10 households. Each group of 10 

homes elects a representative who serves 

as a liaison between that cluster of homes 

and the school, taking the group’s concerns 

to the general parents meeting and sharing 

resolutions afterward. 

The combined force of these communityled 

projects is slowly creating child-friendly 

learning environments and encouraging 

further parent participation. At Makerere 

Primary School, for instance, more parents 

are attending school meetings and are 

also interacting more with their children’s 

teachers. 

Although expanding the projects to other 

schools in the district has been hampered by 

low revenue—over 80% of school revenue 

comes from the central government and 

is usually tied to specific budgets—Butiiti 

community members can no doubt develop 

a homegrown solution to that as well. 


Ms. Getrude Tibakanya, District Education Officer, 

Kyenjojo 


• The SNV approach works because it not only strengthens the schools, but also the local 

capacity builder it works with, in this case Bringing Hope to the Family (BHF). Due in part to 

SNV’s mentoring, BHF has been able to incorporate community participation more fully into 

its programmes. 

• High-quality MSPs require an LCB that has a strong knowledge of the local environment, 

expertise in community mobilisation and good facilitation skills. 

41

Information Management 

Educators need accurate, relevant and 

up-to-date information in order to 

make effective decisions for their 

schools. Local government bodies, including 

district education offices, have long been 

expected to provide information on their 

budgets and the services they deliver to 

the central government, but they are also 

accountable to the people they serve. 

For citizens to hold their governments 

accountable, they need data about school 

performance. Unfortunately, information is 

noticeably absent from most of the districts 

where SNV has been working. Educators 

lack appropriate systems to collect, analyse 

and disseminate data, not to mention the 

ability to incorporate findings to create 

positive changes in children’s education. 

There is hope. New information 

technologies have proven to be efficient, 

affordable tools to manage large quantities 

of information. The challenges now relate 

to training educators on how to gather 

that data, identify the most important 

indicators, analyse the information and 

incorporate the findings into school 

planning. 

The following stories detail SNV’s efforts to 

work with Ugandan districts to improve the 

way information is collected and managed. 

Local Databases documents the lessons 

learned from decentralising education data 

in Bundibugyo, Rakai, Nebbi and Arua. 

CU@School shows how headteachers in 

Kiboga and Mbale used mobile phones 

to track teacher attendance and reduce 

absenteeism. And School Performance 

Reviews offers a new way to conduct school 

development planning based on the 

experiences of Nebbi and Kabarole. 

While not every actor or district has the 

budget or technological capacity to install 

and manage computer databases or mobilebased 

reporting systems, each district can 

benefit from the stories in this section, as 

they all focus on bridging the gap between 

collecting data and effectively using it to 

improve educational quality. 

42


School 

Priorities 

WASH 

School Lunch 

Parent Participation 

Information management involves using knowledge from 

all stakeholders to plan effectively for the future. 

43


You might have seen the headlines in the newspaper. It goes something like: “Government 

deploys teachers to wrong schools.” Or maybe: “Ghost teachers eat UPE grants.” Or 

perhaps this: “Funds for schools don’t match enrolment.” 

These types of miscues could have been solved with good data collection and analysis. 

Unfortunately, much of the education data in Uganda is inaccurate, irrelevant and outdated. 

The Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) recognised this almost a decade ago and 

instituted EMIS: Education Management Information System. Every year schools fill out 

10-page questionnaires developed by the Ministry, which are distributed and collected by 

district education offices. The questionnaires are sent to the MoES in Kampala for data 

entry and analysis, while districts keep hard copies. After the Ministry interprets the data, 

it is supposed to send CD-ROMs to all districts so they can use it 

for planning purposes. In practice, it takes the Ministry 18 months 

to provide feedback to the districts, by which time it has little value. 

The Ministry has since stopped even sending CD-ROMs to districts. 

Instead, they send statistical booklets, which don’t necessarily give 

districts the information that is most pertinent to them. 

Although the EMIS database remains a key instrument to inform 

the policy process at the national level, schools and districts need 

data just as much. “I must be able to open up a page that has 

information for a school to enable me to decide whether to post a 

teacher or not—to know whether there is gender balance in that 

DEOs lacked accurate and timely data. school or not,” stated the Nebbi District Education Officer (DEO). 

Headteachers turned in long forms to the Unfortunately, despite efforts by the Ministry, EMIS has not taken 

district but never received any feedback. root at the district level. While the computer hardware and software 

have become more affordable and available—and should no longer 

be considered insurmountable barriers to localising EMIS—the Ministry was unable to 

provide sufficient technological support for district staff or adequate guidance on how to 

analyse data to improve decision making. 

44


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dddddddddddddddddd 

ddddddddddddddddd 

ddddddddddddddddd 

Everyone needed decentralised data. Link installed software and trained district workers in data entry. 

In 2008, however, SNV saw that with 

its support, a decentralised Education 

Management Information System (DEMIS) 

could work. Essentially DEMIS would 

be a database to inform districts’ primary 

education budgeting, planning, monitoring 

and evaluations at school, subcounty and 

district levels. For SNV, DEMIS has two 

broad functions. First, it is an internal 

management tool for local governments. 

The rich data that the annual census holds 

can only be unlocked when computed. 

In practice, DLGs conduct minimal data 

analysis—usually little more than enrolment 

figures—because doing an in-depth analysis 

of hundreds of census forms by hand is 

simply too big of a job. However, once 

the data is entered in a computer, DEMIS 

can support management and governance 

with a few clicks of the mouse. Second, it 

increases the accountability of those local 

governments. Once data is entered it will 

become easier for DLGs to inform citizens, 

their representing organisations, or the local 

media with real figures—although DLGs 

must also change their attitudes to become 

more open to sharing information. 

Link and SNV rolled out DEMIS in four 

districts: Bundibugyo, Rakai, Nebbi and 

Arua. Link provided the technical expertise 

as SNV designed, monitored and evaluated 

45


Now districts could run in-depth analyses without waiting for the MoES reports. Schools saw a reason to continue submitting 

their data. 

the project; while also filling its normal 

responsibilities in technical backstopping 

and quality control. The goal was not to 

create further structures or new roles to 

manage. Instead, DEMIS was designed to 

improve district officials’ abilities to fulfil 

their existing roles. Together, SNV and 

Link: 

• conducted initial consultative meetings 

with district heads and CSOs to 

determine what data they needed 

• reviewed the DEMIS tools to be used 

for data collection 

• supplied computers to the districts 

• installed the DEMIS software 

• trained district officials on how to 

analyse and use the data for planning 

purposes 

• conducted quality control checks to 

make sure data clerks were accurately 

entering the information 

• shared best practices through districtbased 

dialogue meetings. 

The interventions had varying degrees 

of success in the districts. Arua District 

used the information to make sure female 

teachers who could counsel girls were 

posted in every school. Nebbi District 

46


utilised the attendance data to demand an equitable portion of the education budget 

from the district council. Rakai District established a list of current staff to identify ghost 

teachers, irregularly-hired teachers and absentee teachers with the Chief Administrative 

Officer (CAO) instituting a probe that led to the 

firing of 14 teachers. However, in Bundibugyo, the 

story has been different, with the district unable 

to continue collecting and analysis data once SNV 

and LINK’s involvement ended. The Bundibugyo 

District Education Officer (DEO) testified to the 

district’s persistent challenges, saying, “There is a 

lack of computer skills at the district; many of the 

officers cannot use the computer, so they may not be 

able to retrieve data when required.” 

Still, the intervention has gone some way toward 

making data more available, says the Nebbi 

District Inspector of Schools: “The Ministry 

takes time to produce that statistical booklet of 

school information. In any case, with this DEMIS 

development, I do not mind not receiving that 

booklet now.” 

Some districts were unable to continue collecting and 

analysing data after the SNV intervention. 


Mr. Esau Nshabirwe, District Education Officer, Bundibugyo 

Mr. Semugabi John Bosco, District Education Officer, Rakai 

Mr. Nicholas Tembo, District Education Officer, Arua 

Mr. Stanislas Ogen, District Education Officer, Nebbi 


SNV does not usually supply equipment as part of its interventions. Providing computers to the 

districts proved to be ill-advised for those districts starting without even simple manual information 

systems. Districts must first appreciate the need for an organised system of collecting, analysing and 

storing their information before they are introduced to an automated system. 

47


On any given day in Uganda, 20-30% of primary school teachers do not come to school, 

one of the highest absenteeism rates in the world. With wages making up more than 70% 

of primary education government spending, absent teachers drain the education budget of 

between USD $30-60 million each year according to a 2007 Ministry report. Even worse, 

absent teachers lead to absent pupils. After all, why keep going to school if there is no one 

there to teach you? 

Teacher 

Absent 

With the country’s monitoring mechanisms rendered dysfunctional due to 

spotty electricity and understaffing, attendance figures are not compiled 

quickly enough at the district level for educators to tackle the teacher 

attendance problem. When figures are compiled, they either do not 

make it back to the schools or are in a format they cannot easily access, 

providing little incentive for them to collect accurate data. 

The districts of Kiboga and Mbale were particularly affected by 

absentee teachers but although they knew teacher absenteeism was a 

problem, they didn’t have useful tools to combat it. SNV guided the 

districts to a high-tech, low-cost solution: mobile phones. If you can 

use your mobile phone to send a text message, why couldn’t you use 

it to send attendance data? 

Why keep going to school if there 

is no one there to teach you? 

48


Teacher absenteeism is a major problem in Ugandan schools. 

A 2009 baseline study financed by Flora 

Family Foundation and conducted by 

Prime Initiatives confirmed high teacher 

absenteeism rates as well as poor recording 

and reporting of teacher and student 

attendance in Kiboga and Mbale. In 

other words, records were often missing, 

incorrect or incomplete according to MoES 

guidelines. Based on these results, in 

January 2010 SNV rolled out an ambitious 

pilot in 100 schools throughout Kiboga and 

Mbale to test whether using mobile phones 

could actually improve data collection and 

distribution in Ugandan schools. 

Here’s how the system, which uses software 

created by Makerere University College 

of Computing and Informational Sciences 

(CCIS), works: 

1. Headteachers enter teacher attendance 

figures on a mobile phone. 

2. They send the figures directly to a 

computer database, which analyses the 

data. Which schools have the lowest 

absenteeism rates? Which teachers 

are absent the most? How different 

are absenteeism rates for boys and 

girls across different parishes and 

subcounties? 

49


What types of phones can we use? 

Twaweza, an East African non-profit organisation that supports transparent governance, 

purchased Java-enabled mobile phones for the pilot and the CCIS managed the project’s 

software and hardware. 

These phones, which cost approximately $50, have several advantages over regular mobile 

phones. First, they can easily be identified as belonging to a school, lessening the chance 

that they will disappear. Second, they use forms, which make it easier to enter data. Most 

importantly, they use inexpensive GPRS technology, with each message costing 1 UGX, 

compared to 260 UGX for an SMS. Bringing CU@SCHOOL to scale would further 

reduce the cost per school. While providing mobile phones to headteachers throughout 

Uganda would cost approximately $400,000, the software has already been developed 

and tested. Collecting the data using GPRS (based on 5 sent messages per school per 

week for each primary school in Uganda) would only cost US$ 300 a year, making the 

project easily sustainable. 

3. The data is synchronised onto 

computers at district local government 

(DLG) offices and integrated with the 

national EMIS database. 

All of this happens instantly. The system 

can function without a paper trail and there 

is no need to re-enter the data. But the 

best part is that—because the information 

is viewable on multiple computers 

simultaneously and does not rely on the 

DLG to distribute it—the system has the 

potential to make school attendance figures 

truly transparent, as everyone receives the 

information they need to look together for 

solutions to the attendance problem. 

It increases transparency in four ways: 

First, district education officer (DEOs) and 

district inspectors of schools (DISs) have 

instant data, so they can easily identify 

which schools have attendance problems 

and follow up. 

Second, the database automatically 

generates easy-to-understand reports 

that are sent to schools, subcounties and 

parishes, so officials can ensure the data 

being sent by headteachers is accurate. 

Third, by providing attendance reports 

through newspapers, local radio and 

automated SMSs along with suggestions on 

how to engage with their schools to improve 

their children’s education, the project 

stimulates parents and communities to take 

ownership of their local schools. 

Fourth, the project posts the database 

on the Internet in the form of interactive 

maps with individual schools’ data as well 

as subcounty “heat maps” that compare 

attendance in different areas. 

Did making attendance rates more 

transparent improve attendance? And if so, 

did increased attendance lead to increased 

learning? 

Since the pilot spanned only two terms, 

any improvements to student learning 

were expected to be minimal, so the main 

focus was to increase teacher attendance. 

SNV oversaw spot checks to validate the 

information sent by headteachers; districts 

continuously monitored attendance figures 

for improvement throughout the pilot. A 

follow-up study at the end will compare the 

2009 baseline results against the current 

50


situation, using a control group to see what 

effect the pilot has had. The hope is that the 

project has not only improved the travel 

of data between schools and DEOs but 

has also created more informed and active 

communities and parents. 

While the CU@School project has provided 

the tools to make data more transparent, at 

the end of the day the most important factor 

is not mobile technology or information 

technology, but human technology. DLGs 

must choose qualified, motivated people 

to be involved in projects; teachers must 

be motivated to teach; and parents must 

demand accountability from the education 

system. If they do not, absenteeism will not 

improve. 


Mr. Nangosya, District Education Officer, Mbale 

District 

Mr. Prosper Rwamasaka, District Education Officer, 

Kiboga 

Next step 

Even before the pilot results are out, the MoES and USAID, through Electronic Management 

Information System, have also begun to use mobile phones to track pupil attendance. MoES is 

running a pilot project in some of the districts were SNV has been operating, including Rakai, Mpigi, 

Kiboga, Mbale and Kyenjojo. SNV hopes that additional districts will adopt mobile technology with 

Ministry support. 

51


“I now know 

the importance 

of handling 

and managing 

information 

and using it 

for planning 

purposes.” 

—Headteacher, 

Nyachara Primary 

School 

You can’t know where you are going if you don’t know where you 

are. That’s the philosophy behind using school performance reviews 

(SPRs) to create better school development plans (SDPs). 

There have been enormous changes to Ugandan primary education in 

the past decade. All schools are now obligated to create school SDPs, 

with school management committees (SMCs) ultimately responsible 

for preparing, reviewing and updating them regularly. Unfortunately, 

many SMCs do not know how to make a good SDP. 

To remedy this, SNV initiated SPRs in several districts to collect, 

manage, monitor and evaluate school information and increase 

community and parent participation. This article shares the 

experiences of two of those districts, Nebbi and Kabarole. 

Nebbi 

Universal Primary Education (UPE) dramatically increased school 

enrolment. While it is, of course, desirable to have all children attend 

school, higher attendance has exacerbated school management 

problems, creating more information to manage without providing 

the hardware and technical knowledge to collect and process it. In 

districts like Nebbi, it is therefore harder for educators to get accurate 

and relevant data—on everything from attendance to gender balance 

to test scores—to help them undertake school development planning, 

let alone monitor its implementation. 

While is tempting to simply throw technology at a problem like 

52


School performance reviews bring stakeholders together and help them incorporate their inputs into school development plans. 

this, the effect would be minimal because 

any solution needs to simultaneously 

address Nebbi’s other major problems: 

weak community participation in school 

improvement activities and an inability to 

create effective SDPs. 

The district asked SNV for support. SNV 

responded by encouraging district staff to 

integrate SPRs into school improvement 

planning (SIP) systems. In 2010, with 

Link Community Development acting 

as a local capacity builder (LCB), SNV 

developed a memorandum of understanding 

with district management, getting buy-in 

from the district education office, district 

inspector of schools, centre coordinating 

tutor (CCT), headteachers and district 

political leaders. 

Link introduced these groups to the SPR 

model and showed them how to use the tool 

in schools. The tool, which collects data on 

18 indicators, is composed of three sections: 

general school information, the teaching 

and learning process, and school leadership 

and management. 

Link installed a local database and trained 

three staff members to collect the data, 

enter it into the database and analyse it to 

check whether the goals for each indicator 

53


were met. Unfortunately, Nebbi has been 

slow in entering data because the teams 

are performing these duties in addition to 

their normal tasks. They also face regular 

power cuts. Nevertheless, the district is in 

a position to start using the information 

later this year immediately after holding 

a conference to share the findings. Those 

findings will give a snapshot of school 

performance that forms the basis for school 

(or district) development planning to guide 

the district local council in creating an 

education budget. 

The SPR exercise is a crucial first step in 

improving local decision making and already 

seems to be paying off. As one Nebbi 

headteacher said, “My school will definitely 

be managed better than before, since I now 

know and appreciate the importance of 

handling and managing information and 

using it for planning purposes.” 

Kabarole 

The Kabarole Education Sector Strategic 

Plan has two basic goals: increase children’s 

access to school and improve the quality 

of the education they receive. These 

goals make sense, as school performance 

in Kabarole has been especially poor 

in the areas of enrolment, primary 

school completion and Primary Leaving 

Examination (PLE) pass rates. Yet actually 

turning this state of affairs around is 

hindered by a dysfunctional management 

system. Proper and inclusive school 

development planning by school, subcounty 

and district leaders can help improve the 

quality of education. 

Through local capacity builders (LCBs) 

based in Kabarole, SNV conducted 

SPRs in 20 schools. The LCBs started 

with basics, training SMCs on their 

roles and responsibilities with planning 

tools developed by SNV, showing school 

managers how to plan in a way that 

encourages participation by parents and 

communities. The SMCs then prioritised 

areas that the SPR showed to have problems 

and focused on them to create SDPs. 

Together, they determined how to monitor 

and evaluate the plans so that they could 

share best practices in school development 

planning with subcounty and district 

educators. It was not an easy process, but 

it seems to have improved planning. One 

subcounty official noted, “SDP was very 

hard. We would ask schools for priorities 

to include in the subcounty plan but 

nothing would come from schools. Now, the 

situation is different.” 

Kabarole District has revitalised school 

development planning to better manage 

the 20 schools in the pilot, increasing 

community involvement in education in 

the process. Although the long-term effects 

are unclear, in the short time that the pilot 

has run, the schools have seen an increase 

in attendance by teachers and pupils alike, 

resulting in more teaching time. 


Mr. Stanislas Ogen, District Education Officer, 

Nebbi 

Mr. Sarah Karamagi, District Inspector of Schools, 

Kabarole 

“SDP was very hard. We would ask schools for 

priorities to include in the subcounty plan but nothing 

would come from schools. Now, the situation is 

different.” 

54

School Priorities - SNV

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