School Priorities - SNV

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Quality Education 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. For more information, contact Transform Uganda, Kumi Other education actors are taking notice. UNICEF, with support from the Dutch Lessons learnt • 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
Quality Education 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 Lessons learnt • 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
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